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Frontispiece. 



WATER-ANIMALS. 



BY 

ELLA RODMAN CHURCH, 

Author of "Birds and their Ways," "Flyers and Crawlers,' 
" Flower-Talks at Elmridge," etc. 







PHILADELPHIA I 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 

AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK, 

1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 



,C5Z> 



COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK. 



All Rights Reserved, 




Westcott & Thomson, 

Stereolypers and Eleclrolypers, Philada. 



PREFACE. 



The volumes of this Elmridge Series 
do not claim to be scientific treatises. They 
are merely familiar conversations about the 
particular objects included in the respect- 
ive books. Much information is given, 
however, in this chatty way. In the pres- 
ent volume many interesting facts are 
brought out concerning Water-Animals. 
Young people and children will enjoy read- 
ing the book, and cannot but be profited 
by what they learn in its pages. 

It is certainly important that in the midst 
of the great amount of fiction that the 
young are now reading there should be 
some place also for the learning of the 
wonderful things of nature — our Father's 
handiwork. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

On Skates u 

CHAPTER II. 
About Seals 25 

CHAPTER III. 
The Seal Country 39 

CHAPTER IV. 
Seals at Home 64 

CHAPTER V. 
Slippery Pets 84 

CHAPTER VI. 
Some Big Cousins . 100 

CHAPTER VII. 
Some Mission- Work 120 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Sea-Lions 138 

CHAPTER IX. 
A Sea-Bear 163 

7 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

FAGE 

At the North Pole 185 

CHAPTER XI. 
Cold Comfort 208 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Polar Bear Arrives 229 

CHAPTER XIII. 
A Thrilling Story 253 

CHAPTER XIV. 
A Change of Scene 264 

CHAPTER XV. 
Something about Africa , . 281 

CHAPTER XVI. 
A Curious Water-Lily 293 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Right Kind of Help 316 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
A Pleasant Discovery 329 

CHAPTER XIX. 
A Dangerous Neighbor 336 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

Frontispiece 2 

Seal 27 

Polar Bear and Seal 33 

Moonlight Scene: Northern Alaska 41 

Sitka 43 

Alaskan Girl Tattooed 45 

An Alaskan Chief 55 

Eskimos Watching for Seals 57 

A Cool Spot 68 

Eskimo Spearing Seal 74 

An Affectionate Seal 97 

A Scene in the Arctic Ocean 107 

Walrus and Young no 

A Walrus-Hunt 115 

Cool Sport 117 

Sea-Lions 145 

In a Lighthouse 151 

Otters 171 

Native Greenlanders ••.... 187 

Heavily Clad 199 

Eskimo House 201 

9 



IO LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

Eskimo Village , . 205 

An Iceberg 217 

Traveling in Eskimo Style 222 

Polar Bear 230 

Mrs. Bear and Little Bear 237 

Rival Hunters 247 

Rain-Doctor 269 

A Bushman Family 285 

Africans 291 

Neither Pretty nor Good 297 

Spearing Hippopotamus 301 

A Hippopotamus Baby 305 

Hippopotamus 311 



Water-Animals. 



CHAPTER I. 

ON SKATES. 

EVERY one said that it was a very 
cold winter. Snow and ice reigned 
supreme, and it seemed much more con- 
venient in going out to fall down than to 
stand upright. People became so accus- 
tomed to tumbling that no one thought of 
feeling mortified by such an accident. 

In many places the unusual amount of 
snow did a great deal of damage, hindered 
travel and interfered with business ; and in 
the cities especially it was not looked upon 
as a blessing. But God's blessings often 
come in disguise, and in some shape or 
other this unwelcome snow may have been 
one of them. 

11 



12 WATER- ANIMALS. 

There was a great deal of shivering 
in poor, half-warmed houses and by poor, 
half-clothed children ; but at Elmridge it 
seemed like summer within doors, while 
outside the gracefully sweeping evergreen 
trees laden with snow, and the vines and 
bushes coated with ice, the white hills in 
the distance with blue and purple shadows 
on them, and the clear, steel-blue sky over 
all, made a beautiful picture. 

Malcolm, now a tall boy of thirteen, 
seemed really proud of the cold and an- 
nounced every morning how high — or rather 
how low — the thermometer was ; while a 
pond near the Elmridge property, that pro- 
duced beautiful lilies and other wild-flowers 
along its borders in summer, was carefully 
watched for skating, and " lots of fun " 
counted on when Thomas should pronounce 
it all right. Malcolm had a magnificent 
sledge, rather than a sled, in which he often 
pushed Miss Harson or his sisters over the 
ice ; but he declared that it needed a cou- 
ple of Eskimo dogs to make it just the 
thing. 

There was a great commotion down at 



ON SKATES. 13 

the pond — an excitement which had begun 
at the house quite early in the morning — 
one day near the last of January, and the 
principal cause of this excitement was the 
fact of its being Miss Harson's birthday. 
An immense box that had mysteriously 
found its way to her door during the night 
proved a complete surprise, not only to the 
young lady, but to some smaller people, in 
whose charge it had remained for two or 
three days past. When the box was 
opened Miss Harson looked as if she were 
going to cry, while Clara and Edith fairly 
shrieked with amazement. 

Papa Kyle was at the bottom of it all, 
and the double surprise gave him a great 
deal of enjoyment. 

To the little girls it seemed very old in- 
deed to be twenty-one, and they wondered 
how it felt ; but Malcolm said grandly, 

" Pooh ! that's only eight years older 
than / am !" 

They all took their first glance at Miss 
Harson on that eventful morning with 
some awe, as if they expected to see quite 
a change in her appearance ; but she looked 



14 WATER-ANIMALS. 

just as young and smiling as ever, and 
laughed and bore her sentence of sixty- 
three kisses, twenty-one apiece, as well as 
she could. 

" What can there be in this famous box ?" 
she asked as with flushed cheeks and some- 
what tumbled hair she finally emerged from 
the tangle of children. u And where has it 
come from ?" 

Malcolm proceeded to untie it, and there 
lay a beautifully-folded brown mass, while 
a dainty card announced that it was " For 
dear Miss Harson, on her twenty-first 
birthday, from her loving pupils." A beau- 
tiful sealskin sacque was taken out ; and 
underneath were two smaller ones, with 
the label, " Clara and Edith, from Papa." 

"Why, we're not grown up," exclaimed 
Clara, as no one else seemed able to say 
anything. " I thought that only young 
ladies had sealskin sacques." 

There was a knock at the door, and Jane 
entered with a round, long box, which she 
set down before Miss Harson as she tried 
not to laugh: "Mr. Kyle's compliments, 
ma'am," 



ON SKATES, 15 

Out came three dainty sealskin muffs 
that just matched the sacques. 

Jane retired only to return again with 
another box, which she announced with 
" Master Malcolm's compliments, ma'am ;" 
and this time there were jaunty-looking 
caps, or turbans, to match the other things. 
The paper said, " From Malcolm to the 
three young ladies — all ready for the ice." 

"Why, Malcolm!" exclaimed his govern- 
ess in dismay, " how could you do this ?" 

"It was easy enough, ma'am," replied 
the laughing boy. " Papa gave me a lot of 
money one day, and said that I could do as 
I liked with it, but he thought the best thing 
to do was to get you three young ladies a 
sealskin cap apiece, to go with the sacques 
and muffs, and then you could go out with 
comfort in very cold weather. Papa went 
with me, and I chose the caps, so you see it 
was really my present, after all." 

"I never doubted it, my dear boy," said 
Miss Harson, affectionately, "but this really 
is too much." 

Two little figures were now fully arrayed 
to their intense satisfaction, and there was 



1 6 WA TER- ANIMALS. 

a. general chorus for Miss Harson to do the 
same. The soft sealskin caps were very 
becoming, and Malcolm admired and com- 
plimented them all. 

" Papa," said Edith as the two sisters 
made their way to their father just as he 
was starting for the city, " we're ever so 
much obliged for these lovely sacques and 
muffs, and we've thanked Malcolm for the 
caps ; but Miss Harson says there's too 
much. I believe she's crying, too." 

" Oh, Edie !" exclaimed Clara. But be- 
fore she could get any further Mr. Kyle 
said, with a very funny look in his eyes, 

" If there is too much of it, we can have 
some taken off. Do you think she meant 
the sacque?" 

" Why, it just fits her," replied Edith in a 
perplexed tone, "and so does everything. 
But she did not laugh a bit. And oh, papa, 
she does look so sweet !" 

Mr. Kyle laughed, if Miss Harson hadn't, 
for this curious jumble of Edith's, who was 
very much in earnest, sounded more amus- 
ing than she meant it to be. And then 
papa became in a minute quite grave 



ON SKATES. 17 

again, and asked Edith in a very sober way 
if she thought Miss Harson, when she said 
there was too much, wanted them to take 
back the muff or the cap, or both? 

Then Edith made a rush at her father, 
and, burying her head in his overcoat, said, 

"Now, papa!" in a very plaintive tone. 

" There! there, little girl!" with several 
pats and a hearty kiss ; " be off with your 
nonsense. — And now, Clara, for ' a bear- 
hug/ and then make Miss Harson smile, if 
you can, over her misfortune, and get her 
down to the pond." 

Miss Harson did smile, for this command, 
repeated by Clara and the earnestness with 
which she delivered it, amused her very 
much ; but she replied quite firmly, 

"After lessons" and had the fascinating 
sealskin garments put out of sight for the 
present. She said, laughingly, that she 
could not help being twenty-one and hav- 
ing a birthday, but she could help neglect- 
ing her duties. There was a shorter session 
than usual, but the lessons were very thor- 
oughly attended to, and after lunch a merry 
party started for the pond. 



1 8 WATER-ANIMALS. 

There was a cold sting in the air, but that 
did not matter much to the figures wrapped 
in sealskin, as it only painted their cheeks 
with the brightest carnation and made their 
eyes dance more brilliantly than before. 
Malcolm declared that he was dressed in 
gossamer in comparison, and drew vivid 
pictures of a frozen boy to be carried home 
when the fun was over; but a glance at his 
sturdy figure and heavy overcoat, his thick 
gloves and fur ear-flaps to the Glengarry 
cap, was quite reassuring. 

Miss Harson skated very gracefully, and 
the little girls were past their first fear of 
the ice ; Malcolm felt very proud of his 
party, whom he considered entirely under 
his protection ; and perhaps he showed this 
a little too plainly. At least, some rough, 
unpleasant-looking boys, who were doing 
what Malcolm called " cutting up shines" 
at the other end of the pond, appeared to 
think so, for they called out mockingly, 
" Stuck up !" and said something about 
" girls dressed in bear-skins/' not being ac- 
quainted with seals. 

Malcolm did a great deal of scowling in 



ON SKATES. 19 

reply, and matters were getting rather se- 
rious when suddenly there was a shriek 
from Edith, who had twisted her ankle, and 
down she went upon the ice. Several of 
the boys scampered off, as though afraid of 
being punished for the accident, but two or 
three of the larger ones came up in a 
shamefaced way and offered their help. It 
ended in their carrying the little girl home 
in a very gentle and tender fashion, while 
Malcolm ran on before to stop at the 
doctor's. 

It was only a slight twist, not a sprain, 
and the patient would be "as good as 
new" in two or three days; meanwhile 
Thomas could carry her up and down 
stairs, and every one would help to make 
her as happy as possible. 

Miss Harson did not forget the boys, who 
had shown themselves so much better than 
they appeared at first, but, taking them into 
the warm kitchen, she had some hot lemon- 
ade made for them, to which Kitty added 
generous slices of pie and cake that seemed 
to give great satisfaction. Having found out 
their names and where they lived, the young 



20 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

lady said a few kind words to each and then 
returned to her little flock. 

The boys pronounced her prettier than a 
picture; Kitty assured them that she was 
as good as she. was pretty ; and as to being 
" proud," people that hadn't a thing to be 
proud of were a great deal prouder. When 
the visitors left Elmridge, it was with the 
feeling that "stuck-up quality" were not 
so stuck up, after all ; except Malcolm : 
they had not forgiven his scowl. 

Miss Harson was talking to him about 
that very thing, and warning him that his 
quickness to resent an offence would get 
him as well as others into trouble. But for 
Edie's fall, it might have done so that very 
afternoon. 

"Poor little Blossom!" he said, kissing 
his sister tenderly ; " I'm sorry you got 
hurt, and I'd feel worse if I had anything 
to do with it. But, Miss Harson, you did 
not see the fellows as I did, and vou don't 
know how aggravating they were — that 
Sim Jute especially, who grins from ear 
to ear at every one who is dressed at all 
decently." 



ON SKATES. 21 

"Wasn't he one of the three who carried 
Edie home ?" asked his governess. 

Malcolm looked a little confused as he 
"believed he was," and Miss Harson con- 
tinued: "I do not excuse rudeness, as you 
know of old, but there is great allowance 
to be made for such boys. They are not 
brought up to respect the rights of others, 
and when a party of warmly-dressed, pros- 
perous-looking people come to invade what 
they probably consider their own domain, 
it reminds them of their own scanty cloth- 
ing and perhaps empty stomachs, and they 
feel angry and injured. I do not say that 
this feeling is right, because it is not, but it 
only adds fuel to the fire to meet it with 
threatening looks." 

"I don't believe," said Malcolm, still 
rather unsubdued, "that we can have any 
more fun on the pond because of those 
loafers ; and I think it's a shame !" 

" The three 4 loafers ' who carried Edith 
home," replied the young lady, "behaved 
very well in the kitchen, where they seemed 
very grateful for some refreshments ; and I 
do not think we shall have any more trou- 



22 WATER-ANIMALS. 

ble with them. But Kitty, you see, didn't 
look a bit cross when I took them in." 

"Somebody else didn't either," was the 
prompt reply. " Oh, Miss Harson, why can't 
I smile like you, instead of scowling like 
me ?" 

" You are an absurd boy," said his gov- 
erness, laughing at this nonsense, " but I 
do not despair yet of your learning the 
power of the ' soft answer ' in look as well 
as in word." 

Meanwhile, Edith was comfortably settled 
on the sofa, with Clara hanging over her in 
a very devoted way. She rather enjoyed 
being a sort of invalid, without feeling ill 
and having disagreeable doses to take. 

"Well," said Miss Harson, kissing the 
rosy cheek that was turned to the fire, 
" what is all this thinking about ?" 

" I don't see," was the reply, " why they're 
sealed skins. Are they all sealed up, like 
letters, when they make 'em into sacques ?" 

"You funny little thing!" cried Malcolm, 
while every one looked very smiling. 

But Edith did not like being called "a 
little thing" when " she was nine, any way," 



ON SKATES. 23 

as she said with some triumph, and it 
seemed to be getting on very respectably 
toward twenty-one. 

"Don't hurry, dear, to get old," said her 
governess, affectionately; "and 'little thing' 
is a pet name, you know. If you were 
really big, I couldn't take you on my 
lap." 

This seemed to be some consolation to 
the child, but the " sealed skins" needed 
further inquiring into, and Miss Harson 
continued: 

"The name is ' sealskin/ Edie, not 'sealed 
skin ;' and the seal is a very interesting ani- 
mal that lives most of the time in the water." 

"Oh!" said the little girl, in great sur- 
prise, " I should think it would spoil the 
pretty fur to be in the water. How does 
it ever get dry?" 

"Why, that is quite a long story," was 
the smiling reply, "and it does seem strange 
for a fur animal to live in the water. But 
I promised to tell you in our next talks 
about some water-animals, and how would 
you like me to begin to-night with our 
friend the seal?" 



24 WATER-ANIMALS. 

"It seems an excellent plan," said Mr. 
Kyle, who appeared just then in the door- 
way, "but would there be any objection to 
dining first ?" 

And, picking up Edith in his arms, he 
led the laughing party into the dining- 
room, where they were soon all very busily 
engaged. 



CHAPTER II. 

ABOUT SEALS. 

DOES the seal look like a whale ?" 
asked Edith with great interest 
when the little party were assembled again 
for the promised " talk." 

" No, dear," was the reply, " it does not 
look in the least like it, and only resembles 
that huge mammal in being an animal in- 
stead of a fish. These pictures will give 
you a very good idea of it ; and you see, 
for one thing, that the seal has a queer 
little round head, while a whale's head is 
sometimes half the size of its whole body." 

"And it has such great big round eyes!" 
said Clara. 

"And a kind of moustache," said Mal- 
colm; "isn't that funny?" 

"Are these wings in front?" said Edith; 
" they don't look like legs." 

2d 



26 WATER-ANIMALS. 

" No, Edie, they are not wings, for the 
seal doesn't fly. They are more like paws, 
but they are often called * flippers/ " 

"There's a tail," said Clara, " like a fish." 

" No, dear; not a tail, but just another 
pair of flippers. Only fishes have tails of 
that kind, and the seal is not a fish. ,, 

" But the seals live entirely in the water, 
don't they, Miss Harson ?" asked Malcolm. 

"Not entirely/' was the reply, " although 
their chief amusements are swimming and 
diving; but they can also get along, after a 
fashion, on land. These queer flippers, 
which look very much like flat gloves with- 
out any hands in them, are really arms and 
legs ; and a very interesting modern natu- 
ralist says that, in looking at the drawings 
of the bones in a seal's flipper and an ani- 
mal's fore leg you will find that you can 
match every bone of the one by a similar 
bone of the other. The shapes of the 
bones, to be sure, are altered to suit the 
varied uses of swimming in the water and 
walking on the land, but all the parts of 
the arm and hand (or fore foot) of any other 
mammal are seen also in the flipper of our 




SEAL. 



28 WATER-ANIMALS. 

subject — only there they are shortened, 
thickened and covered with a membrane 
which converts them into a paddle instead 
of a paw." 

This had a very comical sound, as if a 
seal were a live boat provided with all the 
necessary belongings for skimming through 
the water. 

" He is a very curious animal," continued 
Miss Harson, " and to become properly 
acquainted with him we shall have to travel 
thousands of miles and follow him into the 
cold, dreary waste of ice and water where 
he loves to dwell, or meet him on some 
barren shore where, if not so forbidding as 
this, it is desolate enough." 

The children were delighted with the 
prospect, and declared themselves ready to 
travel anywhere. 

" We will first see what we can learn 
about seals at home," was the smiling reply; 
" and, first, tell me what you think of them 
from the pictures." 

"They're slipperyAooYmg" said Edith, 
"and fat." 

"They are slippery-looking because they 



ABOUT SEALS. 2Q 

are fat and have such wonderfully smooth 
skins ; and their eyes are immense in pro- 
portion to those of other animals. They 
have too a very soft expression, and seals 
are said to shed tears like human beings. " 

" I wonder if any one ever really saw 
them cry ?" said Clara. 

"What do they cry for/* asked Malcolm, 
"when they look so comfortable ?" 

"They have a great many troubles," re- 
plied his governess, " which we should think 
well worth crying for. They don't like, 
for instance, to be wounded and killed, or 
to have their little ones knocked on the 
head and carried away before their eyes." 

11 But that is cruel and wicked," said 
Edith ; " only bad people do such things." 

" The people who do it, dear, are not bad 
because of that, for they want the skins and 
sometimes the flesh ; and little girls, as well 
as big ones, who like sealskin sacques and 
muffs and caps, are really the ones to 
blame." 

Edith laughed a little as she patted the 
soft muff that lay beside her, and Malcolm 
said that she was fairly caught. 



30 WATER-ANIMALS. 

"Are the big round eyes brown ?" asked 
Clara; "they look so in the pictures." 

"They are often described as brown," 
replied her governess, " and sometimes 
they are said to be * of the greenish hue of 
the sea/ The seal has a moustache and 
whiskers like a cat, and its fur coat is, as 
we know, wonderfully soft and silky. Were 
it not for this pretty coat the animals would 
not be so continually hunted and killed. 
We are told that a great many years ago 
seals were found all along our shores, and 
were quite common in New York Bay ; but 
they have been hunted far beyond the coast 
of Maine, and are getting farther away all 
the time. How much it would add to the 
pleasure of a voyage down the bay, or a 
ramble along the wave-polished beach, if 
we could see, here and there, trim brown 
animals creep up from the water on some 
projecting rock and gaze at us with no 
fear in their mild eyes while shaking the 
drops of water from their coats !" 

Of course the little Kyles thought so too, 
and they felt very much aggrieved that the 
seals had been driven out of sight. 



ABOUT SEALS. 3 1 

" Seals have a great many enemies be- 
sides the hunters," continued the young 
lady ; " sword-fish and sharks and polar 
bears are all fond of seal-meat, and as our 
smooth brown friends w r ould be drowned if 
they remained long under water, these en- 
emies have a fine chance to capture them 
when they come up to breathe." 

"Why, Miss Harson," said Malcolm, 
"isn't it very funny that animals which live 
in the water can get drowned?" 

" Not when you remember that all mam- 
mals — to which class the seals belong — 
breathe air as we do, instead of breathing 
water as fishes do. A seal can scarcely 
hold its breath over fifteen minutes, and 
even that is not comfortable. It is neces- 
sary, therefore, for these creatures in the 
Arctic seas, where mainly is their home, to 
be able to reach the air, even in spite of 
the sheet of thick ice which for half the 
year covers the whole ocean. But in large 
bodies of ice there are always some holes, 
no matter how cold the weather may be, 
and these holes afford the seals of that re- 
gion an opportunity to come to the surface 



32 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

to breathe. There are some species, how- 
ever, that keep round, smooth-edged air- 
holes open for themselves by continually 
breaking away the young ice as fast as it is 
formed : these holes are never very large at 
the surface, sometimes only large enough to 
let one animal poke his nose up through ; 
they are much like chimneys, indeed, for 
the ice may sometimes be a hundred feet 
thick." 

" A hundred feet!" exclaimed Clara; 
" why, that's thicker than this whole house !" 

" It certainly is," was the smiling reply, 
" for it is about twice as thick as this house 
is wide. Just think of being way down 
under such a mass of ice ; and then when 
the poor seal concludes that he cannot 
wait another minute for some fresh air to 
breathe, and gets his head through the 
hole, thinking how delicious fresh air is, he 
suddenly catches sight of a dreadful mouth 
with great fangs in it, ugly little red eyes 
and a white fur collar, and knows, often 
when it is too late, his cruel and perse- 
vering enemy the polar bear ! If only he 
could get away ! but he must breathe. If 




POLAR BEAR AND SEAL. 



34 WATER-ANIMALS. 

it isn't a bear, it's a shark or a sword-fish, 
which is just about as bad. The sword- 
fish has a very pleasant way of tipping 
over a cake of ice when he sees a seal on 
it, so that the poor animal slips off, and then 
the cruel sword-fish soon makes an end of 
him." 

"I wish he could be made an end of!" 
exclaimed Edith, indignantly. 

" He is, dear, quite often ; and his bad 
manners prevent him from being much re- 
gretted in ocean society. Sometimes he 
meets his end by running his sword into 
the side of a ship and leaving it there, for 
his usual habit is to attack any obstacle that 
comes in his path." 

"Well," said Malcolm, "I'm glad the 
ugly fellow gets killed that way." 

"But he doesn't always: sometimes he 
just breaks his sword off and goes on again. 
The poor seal really has a very hard time 
of it, for the Arctic wolves and foxes, the 
raven, and probably also the great snowy 
owl, attack the young before they are able 
to defend themselves or escape. These 
enemies are so active that the heavy and 



ABOUT SEALS. 35 

awkward parents have hard work to defend 
their babies." 

"Oh, Miss Harson!" said Edith, "do 
please tell us about the little baby seals — 
they must be so fat and cunning!" 

" All seals are fat, dear — ' as fat as a 
seal ' is a well-known expression — but the 
baby seals are not so fat in proportion as 
their parents. They are, however, very 
pretty and playful little creatures, and the 
young of the harp seal — which is found in 
great numbers on the coasts of Greenland 
and Newfoundland — are white and woolly- 
looking, sometimes with a tinge of gold. 
But they are allowed to keep this pretty 
dress only a few weeks, and their next coat 
is of gray, coarse fur. Then they are 
called ' ragged jackets ' by the inhabitants, 
while the youngest babies are * white coats/ 
By the time they are two or three years 
old they have turned brown, and have 
black marks like crescents or harps on 
their backs, from which they get the name 
of ' harp seals/ They are now quite grown 
up." 

11 The dear little white ones must be ever 



36 WATER-ANIMALS. 

so much prettier/' said Clara, regretfully; 
" I wish we could see one." 

"I do not think," replied her governess, 
'• that there has ever been a baby seal on 
exhibition ; and these Arctic infants might 
find our coldest winters too warm for them. 
They are born on floating fields of ice, only 
one baby to a family, but with plenty of 
little woolly companions all around them, 
and their chief amusement seems to be 
squealing and barking. They keep up a 
constant commotion in this way, and can be 
heard by passing ships a long distance off. 
When the babies are very young, the 
mothers leave them on the ice and go off 
in search of food, coming back frequently 
to look after the little ones ; and although 
there are thousands of the small white, 
squealing creatures, which to you and me 
would seem to be precisely alike, and all 
are moving about more or less, the mother 
never makes a mistake nor feeds any bleat- 
ing baby until she has found her own." 

" But how can she tell which one is 
hers?" asked Edith. 

" She seems to know by a sort of in- 



ABOUT SEALS. 37 

stinct, and her constant care for her woolly 
baby is something wonderful. There are 
dreadful storms in the cold regions where 
the seals are found — storms that scatter 
great masses of ice and jam them violently 
against anything with which they come in 
contact ; and many large and small seals 
are drowned or crushed to pieces. On 
such occasions it is touching to watch a 
mother seal struggling to get her baby to a 
safe place, either by trying to swim with it 
between her fore flippers or by driving it 
before her and tossing- it forward with her 
nose." 

" Don't the little ones swim themselves," 
asked Malcolm, "as soon as they are 
born r 

" Not a bit of it/' was the reply ; " on the 
contrary, they are very much afraid of the 
water, and cling to their ice-nurseries as 
long as their mothers will let them. But 
you see they have got to learn to protect 
themselves in the water, and a baby's 
mother often pushes him off the ice when 
he is ten or twelve days old. He screams 
with fright, and scrambles out as fast as he 



3 8 JVA TER- ANIMALS. 

can. The next day he tries it again, but 
finds himself very awkward and soon 
tired ; the third day he does better ; and 
before long he can dive and leap, turn 
somersaults (if he is a bearded seal) and 
vanish under the ice the instant danger 
threatens. But he had to learn how, to 
begin with, like any other mammal." 

11 Miss Harson," asked Edith, with a very 
puzzled face, " what is a bearded seal ?" 

"A ferocious species, Edie," replied her 
governess, " which is very large and has a 
particularly thick skin. The Greenlanders 
make their boats of it, and also very dura- 
ble soles for their boots, as well as harness 
for their dogs. It will fight the hunters 
when pursued, and whenever it has a chance 
will inflict a terrible bite. There are several 
kinds of seals, you see, but the most valu- 
able are the small fur-seals of Alaska, with 
which we shall try to become better ac- 
quainted." 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SEAL COUNTRY. 

" "I ~\ THY, it's thousands of miles away !" 

\ V exclaimed Malcolm, as the chil- 
dren were eagerly looking over a map of 
the Western Territories and Alaska ; " how 
do you ever get there, Miss Harson ?" 

"/ don't get there at all," was the laugh- 
ing reply ; " and I should be very sorry to 
undertake it for all the sealskin sacques 
that ever were made. But if you are bent 
on going to Alaska, Malcolm, you must 
step down to California, a short journey by 
rail of a week or so ; then you take a 
steamer from San Francisco, go up the 
Straits of Fuca, and through a broad chan- 
nel, with Washington Territory on one side 
and Vancouver Island on the other. Fin- 
ally, you get to Sitka, one of the largest 
towns of Alaska, and from Sitka to the 
Seal Islands. ' All the way/ says a traveler 

39 



40 WATER-ANIMALS. 

who does not seem to admire the climate, 
4 you may generally find it raining about as 
easily as it could possibly do if care had 
been taken to make it oil instead of water.' 
The fogs too are described as thick as 
molasses, through which it is almost im- 
possible to steer a vessel." 

" What a horrid place it must be !" said 
Clara in great disgust; "/ don't want to go 
to Alaska." 

" Nor I, either/ 1 added Edith. 

"Well, / do," said Malcolm stoutly; "I 
want to catch seals and things. But I can't 
go alone, you see — there's no fun in that; 
and if you don't all come with me, you'll 
get none of the furs." 

" I think," said Miss Harson, " that we 
shall have to go, at least in imagination; 
and when things seem very bad indeed, we 
can comfort ourselves with the thought that 
we are not really there. We can under- 
stand our subject so much better if we 
explore Alaska a little." 

"Well," said Edith, "I shall put on my 
sealskin sacque and cap and muff to travel 
in." 



42 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

" And have all the seals after you," re- 
plied Clara, " claiming their skins. Don't 
you remember Miss Harson's story of 
Borrowed Plumes?" 

"The best way," observed Malcolm, 
"would be to dress up in all these things, 
and then go and sit in the summer-house, 
where there is plenty of snow on the roof 
and all around, while Miss Harson is telling 
us about Alaska. It would make it seem 
so real." 

" There is not always snow in Alaska," 
replied his governess, smiling ; " how can 
there be when it is raining ? Alaska is a 
large place, with a great many islands 
around it, and one of these, Kodiak, has 
trees and grass on it, also native potatoes 
and wild cranberries. Both vegetables and 
fruit are very small, but much better than 
nothing. The mountains of Kodiak, says 
the traveler, ' rise into view at fifty miles' 
distance from the harbor, presenting an ex- 
ceedingly rugged and picturesque appear- 
ance. The foreground is barren and cold- 
looking, with sharp ridges and peaks of 
snow in the rear. As we approach, forests 



44 WA TER-ANIMA LS. 

of scraggy spruce become visible, and we 
are told to take a good look at them, be- 
cause we will see no timber to the west 
and north. Sitka, the old Russian capital 
of Alaska, is situated upon a swampy island 
having the sunless, very wet climate com- 
mon to this coast / which does not sound 
like a region of perpetual snow." 

" Why is it the Russian capital ?" asked 
Malcolm. 

" Because Alaska formerly belonged to 
Russia, and it is only separated from that 
country, as you see on the map, by Behring's 
Strait. The United States bought it from 
Russia in 1867, and some one said that 'we 
got enough land, or water and rocks, for 
the money/ The land is represented as 
being 'mostly set up on end/ and yet it is 
supposed that there are at least 561,000 
square miles of it." 

" Are the people who live there nice ?" 
asked Clara. 

" You would scarcely think them so, dear, 
in any sense of the word. There are sev- 
eral kinds of people in Alaska: the Aleuts, 
who live on the long chain of islands known 



THE SEAL COUNTRY. 



45 



as the Aleutian Islands, the Indians in the 
neighborhood of Sitka (meaning not our 
North American Indians, but a species of 
Eskimo) and those of Alaska proper. Be- 




ALASKAN GIRL, TATTOOED. 

sides these there are a few hundred white 
people, such as traders and agents, and 
half-breeds. Shall I tell you what these 
Aleutians look like, and how they live? — 
Remember, Clara, as a general thing they 



46 WATER-ANIMALS. 

are not clean, and therefore cannot be 'nice' 
companions." 

This did not frighten Miss Harson's 
audience at all ; and, if the truth must be 
told, they looked very much interested. 

"I suppose they are heathens?" said 
Malcolm. 

"No," was the unexpected reply; "they 
are not heathens at all, as most of them 
profess the faith of the Russian-Greek 
Church. But they are careless and super- 
stitious, and much given to feasts and 
dances on Sunday afternoon and evening. 
The native Aleuts are not handsome, being, 
like all Eskimos, of low stature, with small 
dark eyes far apart, broad and high cheek- 
bones, coarse, straight black hair, brownish- 
yellow complexion and small hands and feet. 

" When first discovered, these people 
were living in large dirt-houses partly 
underground, like ' root-cellars/ with the 
difference only of having the entrance 
through a hole in the top and centre, go- 
ing in and out on a rude ladder or notched 
timber post. Some of the houses were 
very large ; one of them being eighty- 



THE SEAL COUNTRY. 47 

seven yards long and forty yards wide ; 
and an old woman said that when her 
people lived there they called it 'a hand- 
some house/ Sometimes a hundred Aleuts 
would live in one of these holes in the 
ground, all crowding together for warmth, 
as it is so hard to get any kind of fuel in 
Alaska. 

"The * barabkie ' is a great improvement 
on this cellar residence, as it is only partly 
underground, and is walled up on the sides 
and roofed over with dirt and sods and 
thatched with grass, a small window placed 
at one end and a small door at the other, 
which opens first into a low, dark alley, 
which in turn communicates with the living- 
room by another small door. This living- 
room is not large, seldom over ten or 
twelve feet square, and generally has a 
hard earthen floor ; the walls are neatly 
boarded up, and sometimes painted and 
embellished with pictures. In this room 
the Aleut spends the greater portion of 
his time when at home and not eng-ao-ed 
in hunting; he shuts himself up in it with 
his family, and builds at irregular intervals 



48 WATER-ANIMALS. 

a brief hot fire in the little Russian stove, 
and either drinks cup after cup of tea all 
day, or else stupefies himself with ' quass,' 
a sort of native beer, and lies back on his 
bed in dull, stupid enjoyment for hours, 
and even days. Many of these huts are 
dry and cleanly, but the greater number 
are damp and filthy, reeking necessarily 
with strong smells. " 

Malcolm declared that the tip of Clara's 
nose was plainly curled up as she said in 
great disgust, " They are not nice at all, 
and I don't like to visit them. Let us go 
away, Miss Harson, please." 

" Presently, dear," was the reply ; " we 
need not, at least, make a very long call 
inside the * barabkie/ You will probably 
like this little frame house better, as it looks 
as though it might have been built almost 
anywhere around us. Such houses are 
found only on the Seal Islands, where they 
have been erected by the Alaska Commercial 
Company, a cottage to each family. There 
are only about four hundred people alto- 
gether on the islands. These Seal Islanders, 
who work for the company and have a fair 



THE SEAL COUNTRY. 49 

proportion of the profit on sealskins, are so 
much better off than the other inhabitants 
of Alaska that they are called the 'rich 
Aleuts* by their less fortunate neighbors. 
They are not at all barbarous, and are 
civil and polite to one another as well as to 
the traders. It is only when under the in- 
fluence of beer or liquor that they lose 
their naturally amiable dispositions and 
fall into bad repute." 

" But why do the white people who take 
care of them and build them houses," asked 
Malcolm, " let them have things to drink?" 

44 They do not 'let' them," said Miss 
Harson, " as they try their best to prevent 
it, both for the sake of the natives and for 
their usefulness in catching the fur animals 
from which they derive a large income. 
But the Aleuts manufacture their intoxi- 
cating drinks very slyly from sugar, flour 
and other unpromising materials, so that 
it seems almost impossible to prevent it. 
Matters have improved, however, with bet- 
ter houses and greater cleanliness, and it is 
hoped that in time this vice will entirely 
disappear." 
4 



50 WATER-ANIMALS. 

"Do they have anything nice to eat?" 
asked Edith. 

" We should not think it nice, for there 
is no wood or coal to cook with ; and in- 
stead of making bread, they depend on 
crackers, which they can buy at the com- 
pany's stores. They have little besides, 
except tea and sugar, but they can catch 
fish and water-fowl, and then they are quite 
contented." 

" But how can they make fires in stoves, 
Miss Harson," said Clara, "if there is noth- 
ing to burn ?" 

"I see," replied her governess, smiling, 
" that you are thinking of what I said 
about that living-room. It is just this 
way, Clara: the only fuel in Alaska, ex- 
cept what is brought there in vessels, is 
driftwood, which floats to them on the sea 
from the northward, and a viney sort of 
shrub called ' chik a-snik.' " 

" I should never guess that meant woody 
said Malcolm ; " it sounds as if some one 
was sneezing." 

Every one thought it a particularly funny 
word, but Miss Harson said that there were 



THE SEAL COUNTRY. 5 1 

probably a great many others in the same 
language just as funny. 

" Native women go up to the mountains, 
where they gather the ' timber/ which is 
rolled into bundles like hay and carried 
down upon their backs. These women 
may be seen coming over the hills in single 
file loaded down with ' chik-a-snik/ like 
pack-trains in the mines. They boil tea- 
water with chik-a-snik for fuel, as that is 
the principal part of their cookery. Their 
fish also is prepared over it when not 
eaten raw." 

" Oh !" exclaimed Clara and Edith ; " how 
can they eat raw fish?" 

11 Because they have been brought up to 
it from babyhood/' was the reply; "we 
should do the same thing if we had their 
training. You will be glad to hear that, 
much as you disapprove of the habits of 
the Aleuts, they do not eat grease and oil 
like the Eskimos. Besides, they are the 
most courageous and enduring of hunters, 
facing the roughest sea in % a slight boat 
called a 'bidarkie/ and boldly attacking 
whatever game comes in their way." 



52 WATER-ANIMALS, 

"Is the boat made of sealskin ?" asked 
Malcolm. 

" Partly, but it has a more substantial 
foundation than that. A frame, fifteen or 
twenty feet long, is made of narrow, light 
strips of wood lashed together with thongs 
of sealskin, and this frame is covered with 
skins of sea-lions from which the hair has 
been scraped. The seams are closed with 
grease, and as the entire frame is covered 
over, with the exception of one or two 
round hatches or holes for the paddlers to 
sit in, they have a craft tight and seaworthy. 
One or two and sometimes three men will 
go to sea in one of these frail barks, and, 
though the waves may dash over them, no 
water is shipped so long as the frame holds 
together. In addition to the paddlers who 
sit in the hatches, their wives and children 
are sometimes stowed away in the hold, so 
that they are entirely out of sight within 
the boat, lying between the feet and legs 
of the men. Fish and furs are similarly 
transported. ,, 

The long, narrow boat, partly under the 
waves, did not look very attractive in the 



THE SEAL COUNTRY. 53 

picture which Miss Harson showed them ; 
but Malcolm thought it must be "great 
fun" to battle with the gale at sea as the 
two Aleuts were doing. 

11 Strange as it seems," continued the 
young lady, " there is on these islands * a 
string/ as a traveler says, 'of smoking, 
grumbling volcanoes which stretches over 
fifteen hundred miles/ Some of these are 
constantly casting out fire, ashes and stones, 
but earthquakes have not been known there 
for a long time. There are other high 
mountains in Alaska which are not vol- 
canic, and one grand river, the Yukon. 
Millions of the finest salmon run up this 
river in June/' 

" Aren't we going to hear about the other 
people, Miss Harson ?" asked Edith, as the 
narrative seemed to have come to an end. 

"Yes, dear/' w r as the reply; "you will 
hear a great deal about them when we 
have finished with the seals, for I suppose 
you mean the Eskimos, who live in the 
northern part of Alaska. We had a slight 
acquaintance, you will remember, with the 
Arctic Eskimos when we were learning 



54 WATER- ANIMALS. 

about those wonderful dogs in our talks on 
Home Animals. But those of Alaska are 
said to be a much finer race of men, and 
instead of having short, dumpy figures, 
they are taller and larger in every way. 
Their faces have more expression, and they 
seem to be full of fun and enjoyment ; yet, 
with all this, there is a terrible lack about 
them. 

" This is expressed in the words of one 
who has lived among them : ' They have a 
decided and independent bearing, and are 
remarkably free and unconstrained in their 
meeting with white men ; but they have 
proved utterly intractable in the hands of 
the missionaries, who have not been able, 
after years of persistent effort, to convert 
even a single family of them to enduring 
Christianity/ 

"Was it not wonderful that they could 
look happy ? Because they were not even 
like the heathens who have never heard of 
the true God." 

The little Kyles could not understand 
their being satisfied with such a miserable 
life. 




AN ALASKAN CHIEF. 



56 WATER-ANIMALS. 

"They do not know that any other is 
better," said Miss Harson ; " and probably 
they pity the missionaries for spending their 
time in reading and praying when they 
might enjoy the delightful and profitable 
excitement of plunging through the waves 
after walruses and seals, with an occasional 
whale. For whale's blubber and walrus- 
meat are their main dependence for food 
during the winter months ; in June they be- 
gin to eat various kinds of fish, hair-seal 
meat, geese, ducks, auks and their eggs. 
But the seal- and whale-oil which they use 
freely with their food is always strong and 
rancid when it is poured out on their meat 
and mixed with their berries. ,, 

•'What nasty people they must be !" said 
Clara, looking as though she had been 
invited to an Eskimo dinner. 

"Are they black ?" asked Edith, a ques- 
tion she had been treasuring up ever since 
"their meeting with white men" was men- 
tioned. 

" No, dear," replied her governess ; " they 
are not black ; yet neither are they quite 
white, as their complexions have a yellow 



58 WA TER- ANIMALS. 

tinge. They are very peculiar-looking, as 
the men and boys have a curious fashion 
of shaving the tops of their heads and 
combing the fringe of hair left in front 
over their foreheads like 'bangs.' The 
Aleuts dress like white men, but these Es- 
kimos wear the dresses of bird and rein- 
deer skins which they have always worn. 
The principal garment is a sort of frock- 
coat, or ' parkie/ as it is called ; and this 
parkie, which is also worn by the women, 
is often very elegant, being made of fur 
and trimmed with white deerskin, which is 
often ornamented with colored feathers and 
embroidery. An ordinary one will have 
collar and cuffs of white dogskin, and for 
winter outdoor wear there is a hood of the 
same white fur, which gives the wearer a 
queer, fantastic appearance. 

" An Eskimo summer-house is rather an 
odd affair, and not at all like our idea of 
going out of town. About the first of 
April the Eskimo hunter leaves his winter 
encampment, taking his family and few bits 
of furniture on his dog-sledge, and goes to 
some locality where he expects to find 



THE SEAL COUNTRY. 59 

seals abound. Arrived there, he cuts out 
square blocks of hard snow, piles them up 
into a round hut with a domed roof, clearing 
away the snow from the inside down to the 
hard ground or ice surface. Over this hut 
he throws water, which in freezing cements 
all the blocks together, and then he has a 
good tight house, as warm as though made 
of stone as soon as he has built his fire. 
This done, he and his family are as com- 
fortable as if they were at their winter 
home ; and if his hunting is successful, he 
is contented and happy. 

II Miss Harson," said Malcolm, with great 
enthusiasm, "/'// be an Eskimo hunter and 
build a snow-house for us all to live in 
down by the pond." 

II I have no objection to your being an 
Eskimo hunter," replied his governess, 
laughing, " so long as you hunt within a 
safe distance of Elmridge ; but I have a 
decided objection to living in a snow-hut." 

"We'll all get on fire," said Edith. 
tm From the snow?" asked her brother. 
" Edith supposed that you meant to make 
a fire in the hut," said Miss Harson ; " but 



60 WATER-ANIMALS. ' 

this would be worse than the risk of taking 
cold." 

" I should think it would, " said Malcolm, 
"as the house would melt down if it didn't 
burn down. But, Miss Harson, Fve been 
thinking of something." 

" What is your thought like ?" asked the 
young lady, with a smile at the boy's beam- 
ing face. 

"Why," rather hesitatingly, "I thought 
that — perhaps — Well, the boys down 
there at Long Meadow might act better if 
they had a little fun sometimes, and so — " 

"I see," as a soft hand was laid caress- 
ingly on his shoulder; "and my boy wants 
to do a little missionary work on the pond, 
and let those less-favored boys have the 
benefit of it." 

" They'd like the snow-hut," said Mal- 
colm, looking up brightly, "and perhaps 
you could think of something to make it 
nicer/' 

" I like those boys who carried me home," 
said Edith ; u they weren't bad." 

In spite of Edie's certainty, however, 
Miss Harson could not get very good 



THE SEAL COUNTRY. 6 1 

characters of Sim Jute and his com- 
panions ; but when she saw their wretched 
homes she did not wonder much at this. 

Poor Sim felt so much ashamed of him 
self and his rags that he tried to slink 
away when he caught a glimpse of the 
young lady from the doorway against which 
he was leaning ; but she was too quick for 
him, and spoke to him so pleasantly that 
the boy felt almost at his ease with her. 

"You will be glad to hear/' said she, 
" that the little girl whom you so kindly 
helped to carry home last week is quite 
well again." 

"Is she?" replied Sim; "thank you." 

He thought this was doing pretty well, 
and Miss Harson smiled very pleasantly 
as she continued: "Mr. Malcolm would 
like to see you in his tool-house to talk 
about a little plan of his for you and the 
other boys. He will tell it to you himself 
if you will come this afternoon." 

Sim couldn't express his admiration of 
the young lady in words, but it actually led 
him to wash his face and hands and smooth 
down the locks of hair which seemed 



62 WATER-ANIMALS. 

desirous of pointing to all the points of 
the compass, and looking, as his mother 
said, " quite like a dandy," he walked over 
to the tool-house in a sheepish frame of 
mind that was partly shared by Malcolm 
himself. Both thought of the scowl and 
the jeering words of that afternoon on the 
pond, and both wished for a moment that 
they were at separate poles. 

But Malcolm did his governess a great 
deal of credit as he said : " You didn't like 
me the other day, Sim, and I did'nt like you 
till you carried my sister home so nicely. 
Let's forget the first part, and see if we can't 
do something to make the pond pleasanter. 
Now, what I've been thinking of is this." 

Then Malcolm told his amazed visitor 
about the snow- house, and also about a shed 
in which there was to be a small stove, on 
which coffee could be made and kept hot 
for the benefit of the skaters, who would 
gladly pay for it, and where half-frozen 
toes could be thawed out. Hot lemonade, 
popped corn and molasses candy could be 
added to the stock, and the young gentle- 
man proposed to advance the necessary 



THE SEAL COUNTRY. 63 

money himself and take his pay from the 
profits. 

Sim was delighted, and his two or three 
helpers were no less so. The enterprise 
prospered wonderfully, and " the pond 
loafers," as they had been called, were 
tasting the pleasures of industry and in- 
dependence. Their conduct improved with 
their prospects, and having taught them to 
help themselves was, as Miss Harson felt, 
a good foundation for other instruction. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SEALS A T HOME, 

HURRAH!" said Malcolm, tumultu- 
ously, " for the Seal Islands ! We're 
going in the first steamer, aren't we, Miss 
Harson?" 

"If you can be bound over to keep the 
peace, you naughty boy ; but I am not sure 
that it wouldn't be a wise plan to drop you 
on one of the uninhabited islands. To 
think of frightening poor Jane in that 
way !" 

" It was just fun to see her," said the mis- 
chievous boy, " when I told her we were all 
going ever so far beyond California, to an 
island in the ocean where there were noth- 
ing but seals and ice. And first she said 
she wouldn't go with us ; and then she said 
we'd all be eaten up and killed ; and then 
she threw her apron over her face and 
cried." 

64 



SEALS AT HOME. 6$ 

"And you thought it fun" replied his 
governess, " to make a fellow-creature un- 
happy ? for Jane is so much attached to us 
all, and so afraid of strange, unknown 
things, that it was equal misery to her to 
stay or to go. I am ashamed of you, Mal- 
colm ; you are not ■ my knight ' at all when 
you conduct yourself in this manner. 

Malcolm humbly begged pardon and 
promised amendment, getting down grace- 
fully on one knee, as he had seen knights 
bend in pictures ; and the scene was becom- 
ing so ridiculous that Miss Harson could 
scarcely keep a sober face. But suddenly 
there was a knock at the door, and up 
sprung Malcolm as Jane entered with 
suspiciously red eyes. 

"I don't know, ma'am," said she, plung- 
ing into the middle of things at once, 
" that Fd mind so much eatin' the fat and 
the oil and wearin' that horrid fur next to 
me, but livin' under a pile of snow, with 
just a hole in the top to breathe — " 

"Oh, Malcolm! Malcolm !" said the young 
lady reproachfully, "tell Jane the truth at 
once." 

5 



66 WATER-ANIMALS. 

It was with a very red face that the young 
gentleman stammered : " This is the way it 
is, Jane ; we're only going to Alaska and 
the seals and all through a book, and I told 
you about it just for fun. You'll forgive 
me, won't you ? I'm sorry I teased you." 

The girl was angry, for a moment, to 
have had her feelings worked upon for 
nothing, but she declared that Malcolm was 
every inch a gentleman, after all, and went 
to sound his praises to Kitty in the kitchen. 
Miss Harson, however, who was very fond 
of u her boy," as she called him, assured 
him that he lacked a number of inches of 
being a gentleman in her estimation, and 
hoped that there would be no more practi- 
cal jokes about their travels on paper. 

"You see, Malcolm," remarked Edith, 
with an air of great wisdom, " that if I was 
a little girl, as I used to be, I'd been fright- 
ened too. But I'm nine, you know." 

" Will you ever be anything but a funny 
little midget, I wonder ?" said her brother, 
as he caught her up and kissed her in spite 
of herself. 

"All on board for the Seal Islands !" said 



SEALS AT HOME. 6? 

Miss Harson, comically ; " the last bell is 
ringing." 

The children laughed and scrambled as 
if for desirable seats, and Clara and Edith 
were finally settled close to their beloved 
teacher, while Malcolm declared that he 
was left out in the cold. 

11 You can be more useful to me there," 
replied the young lady, smiling at his deso- 
late air, "for I shall want you to hand me 
books and wait upon me generally." 

This was some consolation, and the group 
looked contented and expectant. 

"In order to understand these valuable 
animals better," said Miss Harson, "you 
must know that the fur-seal is migratory, 
moving from north to south in the autumn, 
and back again to the north in the spring. 
These creatures hate sunshine and heat, 
and like to spend their summers where 
they can be sure of cool, foggy weather. 
When the thermometer rises to about fifty 
degrees they suffer as much as we do when 
it is at ninety, and they try to cool them- 
selves off, in a very human sort of way, 
with their fan-like flippers." 



68 



WATER-ANIMALS. 



The children burst out laughing:. 

"It must be such a funny sight," said 
Clara, " to see them fanning themselves 
with their own paws !" 




A COOL SPOT. 



" It is," was the smiling reply, " but it is a 
sight to which there are very few witnesses 
in that lonely region. There are four seal 
islands in Behring's Sea, off the west coast 
of the peninsula of Alaska, as you can see 
on the map, but two of them are only 



SEALS AT HOME. 69 

rocks ; and of the two others, St. Paul and 
St. George, the first is said to be the great- 
est resort for seals in the whole world. 
Here the seals gather from the cooler re- 
gion of Behring's Sea and beyond to enjoy 
the delightful fog-banks and rest after their 
journey. The first to arrive are the fathers 
of the families — great, fat, quarrelsome fel- 
lows, who pick out the choicest places 
among the rocks for a summer residence, 
and fight with any other seal who comes 
near to dispute it. They wish to be all set- 
tled at housekeeping before any of the Mrs. 
Seals arrive ; but getting settled is not an 
easy matter when the stronger seals are 
continually driving the weaker ones from 
their places. 

" Each seal mounts guard over a spot 
about ten feet square, and here he stays for 
several weeks without food or water, often 
engaged in deadly combat with some rival 
who is resolved to have that particular 
piece of ground. In these fights the com- 
batants, with teeth clenched in each others 
hides or flippers, struggle in savage though 
alert unwieldiness, their roars of rage and 



70 WATER-ANIMALS. 

defiance being half stifled by the violence 
of the conflict/' 

"Why, I thought," said Edith, in a disap- 
pointed tone, " that seals were nice little 
soft things that didn't fight!" 

" No, dear ; they seem to be quite the 
contrary ; and as to being ■ little/ the male 
seals are six or seven feet long, and weigh 
from three to five hundred pounds. The 
females really are amiable, and only about 
one quarter the size of their partners. 
They are of a different color too, for you 
must know that these animals are provided 
with two coats, the outer one being of short, 
coarse hair, while the under one is the pretty 
fur which we see before us now. The male 
seals are of a rusty black, with a gray patch 
over the shoulders, while the females have 
steel-colored tints on the back, with pure 
white on other parts. 

" When the seals have fully arrived, acres 
of ground are as closely covered with them 
as they can possibly be. They have trav- 
eled two or three thousand miles, and they 
never make a mistake, but always at this 
time of the year get to the same place. 



SEALS AT HOME. J I 

They get over the ground very well, for the 
fur-seal never sprawls out and flounders 
when moving on land, as might be sup- 
posed from observing the progress of the 
common hair-seal : on the contrary, this an- 
imal carries its body clear and free from the 
ground, with head and neck erect, slipping 
forward with its fore feet and bringing the 
hinder ones up to fresh positions after every 
second step forward. When exerting itself 
it can spring into a lumbering, shambling 
gallop, and for a few rods run as fast as a 
man, but will sink quickly to the earth, 
gasping, panting and palpitating." 

" But don't they like better to be in the 
water?" asked Malcolm. 

11 Yes, they always travel by swimming 
under the water, which they do very swiftly, 
the fore flippers acting as propellers, while 
the long, thin hinder ones are used to guide 
their course. Every little while a seal will 
raise his head and neck from the sea to 
snort and look around him. Often when 
playing, or if suddenly startled, these ani- 
mals will leap entirely out of the water, 
like so many dolphins. They delight too 



72 WATER-ANIMALS. 

in turning somersaults in the swell of the 
waves ; then they will float, and scratch and 
rub themselves with their flippers ; and they 
even go to sleep in the water, but take care 
to leave a very small portion of their bodies 
in sight." 

"I should think they'd get killed when 
they are asleep in the water," said Clara. 

"They are never entirely asleep, or they 
wake very easily, for they are by no means 
the dull, heavy animals they are generally 
supposed to be. It is said that a healthy 
seal is never seen sleeping without an in- 
voluntary nervous muscular twitching and 
flinching of various portions of its body, 
usually an uneasy folding out and back of 
its flippers, with quick, crawling movements 
of its skin, the eyes being, however, always 
tightly closed. 

" Over twenty miles of seals are seen 
along the shores of their favorite islands, 
where about four hundred thousand are 
born every year. The young ones are 
droll little creatures, full of fun, and very 
fond of getting together in large squads, 
all the way up from a hundred to ten thou- 



SEALS AT HOME. 73 

sand, to frolic and gambol among them- 
selves, until a common impulse leads them 
to sleep. By the middle of August those 
of them that may be nearest the water 
essay to swim; for a fur-seal pup's first 
attempt is most laughably awkward, and 
did it not begin in some shallow eddy near 
the shore it would certainly drown. But 
while the little animals are ridiculously 
clumsy at their first trial in the water, they 
continue to splutter, flounder, flop and 
paddle in and out, until by the time they 
are ready to leave the islands, in October 
and November, they can move with great 
freedom, and at the age of one and two 
years they become the champion swimmers 
of their species." 

" I like to hear about the little seals," said 
Edith ; " they're so cunning ! I wish you 
could tell us ever so much more about 'em, 
Miss Harson." 

" That will scarcely be possible, Edie, as 
there is really nothing more to tell. They 
do not grow very fast, and so many ene- 
mies, both in and out of the water, are 
watching to pounce upon them that thou- 



74 WATER-ANIMALS. 

sands never get beyond their first sum- 
mer." 



ESKIMO SPEARING SEAL. 



" I suppose, Miss Harson," said Malcolm, 
" that a great many hunters go to Alaska 
to kill seals for the sake of their skins? 



SEALS AT HOME. 75 

I shall, when I am a man, and bring you all 
piles of them for sleigh-robes and every- 
thing/' 

"I don't think you will, sir," was the 
amused reply, "for the Seal Islands are not 
public hunting-grounds. The seals would 
soon disappear if they were. They belong 
to the United States government, and are 
leased to a company that has the care of the 
islands and enjoys all the privileges of the 
seal business. A portion of the money re- 
ceived for the valuable skins is paid each 
year to the government, and only the people 
who belong to the islands are allowed to be 
there and take part in the work and profit. 
These people are carefully looked after and 
made comfortable. No intoxicating drinks 
are permitted to be brought there, and an 
agent who sets a bad example in any way 
is immediately dismissed." 

" I'm so glad," said Clara, " that they try 
to make them good, as well as to get their 
sealskins !" 

"I know what you mean, dear," said her 
governess kindly, " so never mind Mal- 
colm's laughing. — But you must remember, 



j6 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

sir, that you were going on your own re- 
sponsibility to shoot seals on the Seal 
Islands, which you would soon be request- 
ed to leave. n 

" The government can keep its old seals, 
then !" said Malcolm in disgust; "/ don't 
want 'em l M 

" The government will keep its old seals, 
and its young ones too," was the laughing 
reply, " until the proper time comes for 
killing them. This is done by the people 
of the islands, who carry on the business 
rapidly and skillfully according to the terms 
of the lease. Only one hundred thousand 
young males, not less than a year old, are 
allowed to be killed in one season, and this 
is accomplished in a few weeks by the 
natives, who receive forty cents a skin, 
thus dividing forty thousand dollars every 
year among themselves, or a little over four 
hundred dollars to each working man and 
boy. The company sells to the natives an 
extensive assortment of goods, embracing 
all the necessaries of life and many of the 
luxuries, at the wholesale prices of the 
San Francisco market ; and as all widows 



SEALS AT HOME. 77 

and orphans are cared for and supported 
voluntarily by the company, it will be seen 
that these people are better off than any 
similar class of working-men in our country, 
or perhaps in the world. 

" But I know," continued the young lady, 
u that you care more for hearing about the 
seals, and how the poor things are captured 
and killed. It is a very easy thing, and 
four or five men can manage thousands of 
them without danger, as you may suppose 
from this description of the animals' indif- 
ference to the presence of human beings: 

4 " A walk of half a mile down from the 
village to the reef on St. Paul Island, any 
time during September, will carry you to 
the parade-grounds of over two hundred 
thousand pups, among whom you can slowly 
make your way while they clear out from 
your path ahead and close again in your 
rear, you only interrupting them in their 
sleep or play for a few moments. This 
reef-ground in September and early October 
is a strange spectacle as you walk through 
legions of semi-indifferent seals, some timid, 
others boldly defiant, though all give you 



78 WATER-ANIMALS. 

room enough to move safely over the length 
and breadth of the mighty breeding-ground, 
the summer haunt of a million of animals 
universally deemed wild. Creatures which 
will fight one with another to the death 
rather than forsake their stands on the 
rookeries, will yet permit you to approach 
them to within almost reaching distance 
without injury; old bulls which will die 
before they will leave their posts, yet lie 
down and sleep while you stand by to 
sketch or observe them scarcely ten feet 
distant. No other wild animals in the brute 
world will permit this immediate attention 
from man, but the fur-seal is in no way 
whatever concerned if not purposely ha- 
rassed or driven from its position/ ' 

" I shouldn't want to walk through them," 
said Clara, as Miss Harson showed them a 
picture of a large drove of these animals. 

" But there's a cunning little one," said 
Edith, delightedly; "it looks like a lamb." 

" But the poor little lamb will not be 
spared by the butcher," was the reply, " for 
the drove of seals is on its way to the vil- 
lage ; and if the ground is hard and the 



SEALS A T HOME. 79 

weather cool and foggy, the animals will 
travel at the rate of about half a mile an 
hour. They have frequent resting-spells, 
yet many of them fall down senseless on 
the road, getting up again, perhaps, after 
some hours, while some die on the spot. 
They are driven to the salt-houses near the 
village, and the animals move on with very 
little trouble to their drivers, except when 
they drop down from exhaustion. They 
have an odd way of stringing themselves 
out in long files as they travel, and it is 
said that a drove of four or five thousand 
will stretch over a path more than a mile in 
length. " 

" What are salt-houses, Miss Harson ?" 
asked Malcolm ; u and do the seals eat 
salt?" 

" No ; the salt-houses are for the benefit 
of the skins. The seals are easily killed 
with a blow on the head, and they are 
skinned as soon as possible by the natives, 
for if left on the animal even for a few 
hours they lose much of their value. The 
skins are taken up to the salt-houses of the 
company, where they are spread out on 



80 WATER-ANIMALS. 

benches or bins, one upon the other, with 
salt profusely sprinkled over and on the 
fleshy sides, which are turned uppermost; 
and after lying in this pickle for a week or 
two, they are taken up from the bins, fresh 
salt is scattered over them and they are 
bundled up for shipment." 

"And those are our pretty sealskins, 
then?" said Clara, thoughtfully, "and that 
is the way we get them?" 

" They are not quite our pretty sealskins 
yet," replied her governess; "and to see 
them in their natural condition you would 
not recognize them. The over-coat of hair 
is pulled out and the soft close fur is dyed 
a rich dark brown before the skins are 
ready for use. It is a great art to dress 
seal-fur properly, and only a few furriers are 
able to do it. This, in addition to the bleak 
and distant regions where the animals are 
found, keeps sealskin dearer than most 
other furs." 

"What do the rest of the seals do?" 
asked Edith ; " do they go back to the 
places where they came from ?" 

" Yes, dear ; most of them have left the 



SEALS AT HOME. 8 1 

islands by the middle of November, and 
the stragglers are soon driven off by ice 
and snow, on which they do not like to lie. 
They live in the water all winter, passing 
down south and out over the vast expanse 
of the North Pacific Ocean, where they fish 
and sleep and lead a generally free and 
easy life/' 

"Do they eat fish, Miss Harson?" asked 
Clara. 

" Small fish and crabs are their principal 
food ; they are also said to swallow a great 
many pebbles, as hens eat gravel, to help 
the digestion. These queer animals do not 
look as if they could be expert at catching 
any live thing." 

"Why, they haven't got any ears !" ex- 
claimed Edith. "Just look at 'em in the 
picture \" 

" The ear of a seal is very small, and, in- 
stead of being open, it is rolled up like a 
scroll. It cannot raise and lower its ears, 
like cats and dogs ; but from their shape, it 
is evident that they serve to protect the in- 
ternal ear from the water pressure should 
the animal dive deeply and stay down long 



82 WATER-ANIMALS. 

in quest of food or to avoid enemies. The 
sense of hearing is exceedingly keen, and 
although, by taking great care, a seal may 
be approached while asleep near enough to 
touch it without its notice, yet the least 
noise will arouse the animal, which will rise 
erect with a single motion and look con- 
fusedly around for the cause of the disturb- 
ance. If it is an old bull, it will roar at the 
intruder in loud, prolonged, angry tones ; 
if a young male or female, it will snort with 
amazement and immediately shuffle off to a 
safe distance." 

"They must look comical then," said 
Malcolm ; " Fd like to see one snorting and 
shuffiling." 

"It is just possible," was the laughing 
reply, " that you might do a little shuffling 
yourself — or perhaps something faster. In 
spite of its small ears — and the hair-seal 
has no visible ears at all — this animal has 
shown a fondness for music. A traveler to 
Spitzbergen says that at the sound of a 
violin which was played on board the ves- 
sel a large number of seals would surround 
the ship and follow it for miles, apparently 



SEALS AT HOME. 83 

enjoying every scrape of the bow. A great 
Scotch poet mentions this peculiarity in the 
lines : 

■ Rude Heiskar's seals, through surges dark, 
Will long pursue the minstrel's bark.' " 

11 Did he mean our Alaska seals ?" asked 
Clara. 

" No, dear ; he was speaking of the seals 
found on the coasts of the Shetland Islands, 
to the north of Scotland. I will tell you 
something about those islands to-morrow; 
but now it is bedtime for all people under 
five feet and two inches high." 

Malcolm proudly measured himself, inch 
for inch, with his laughing young governess, 
but he only received a pinch on the cheek 
with his good-night kiss, and took up his 
line of march in the family procession. 



CHAPTER V. 

SLIPPERY PETS. 

"T REMEMBER the Shetland ponies/' 
A said Edith as she nestled up to Miss 
Harson. 

" There are several other things to re- 
member about Shetland," was the reply ; 
" Shetland-wool shawls are really beautiful 
in their lace-like texture, and were very 
much worn some years ago, while Shet- 
land stockings were equally famous, and 
men, women and children would knit in- 
dustriously all day long, even while em- 
ployed in doing other things. But when 
stockings were made by machinery knitting 
was no longer profitable, and Shetland 
became the poorer for it." 

"It was poor enough before, wasn't it?" 
asked Malcolm. 

" Yes ; the northern coast of Scotland, 
where the ninety islands called Shetland 

84 



SLIPPER Y PE TS. 85 

are to be found, is particularly desolate and 
barren-looking — just the place for seals and 
sea-creatures. The country itself is so 
poor that scarcely a tree can be seen in all 
the length and breadth of it, and the birds 
have to live on the ground, as they can 
find neither trees nor hedges in which to 
set up housekeeping. The crows build 
their nests of fish-bones, for want of twigs. " 

" Isn't that funny !" said Clara; "I 
shouldn't think they'd know how to build 
any nests at all without trees." 

" Does it not plainly show that they are 
taught of God?" asked her governess. 
" We know that he cares for the sparrows, 
and here, in this desolate part of the world, 
the needs of the humblest creatures he 
places there are all provided for." 

It was indeed wonderful, and the children 
were silent for a moment, until Malcolm 
exclaimed : 

"I can't think, Miss Harson, what a place 
looks like without any trees at all." 

"You can think of the seashore, can you 
not? It looks like that, only worse. A 
visitor to one of the Shetland Islands said : 



86 WATER-ANIMALS. 

1 The tallest and grandest tree I saw dur- 
ing- my stay on the island was a stalk of 
rhubarb nearly seven feet high, which had 
run to seed and waved its head majestically 
in a garden below the fort, looking quite 
shady and ornamental. , " 

How the little audience laughed at this 
rhubarb shade-tree, with their own mag- 
nificent elms, now coated with icicles and 
glittering in the sunshine, in full view all 
around them ! They were beginning to see 
that their lines had been cast in pleasant 
places. 

" Don't they have anything there but 
ground ?" asked Edith, sympathizingly. 

"Oh yes, dear; they have grass and 
rocks. But you will think this not much 
better. The whole region is so rocky that 
walking in Shetland is very hard work, and 
only the heaviest shoes can stand it. An 
old gentleman there used to say that he 
wore in the morning three rows of nails on 
the soles of his shoes, but when he was in 
full dress he had only two. Shetland is 
preferable to Alaska, because it is not so 
cold and so far away ; but the people are 



SLIPPERY PETS. 87 

almost as poor, and they have to work 
harder. Like the Aleuts, they drink a 
great deal of tea, which they care far more 
for than they do for bread ; and they are 
very kind to each other and hospitable to 
strangers. They will share their last mouth- 
ful with a hungry person, and no one is 
ever allowed to starve unless all perish 
together. ,, 

"Then the poor things don't even have 
enough to eat !" exclaimed Clara. " Oh, 
Miss Harson ! can't they do anything to 
make some money ?" 

" Very little, Clara/' was the reply, " and 
that little is so terribly dangerous that 
many lives are lost in doing it. The high 
steep rocks which fringe these islands are 
full of sea-birds' nests, and men and boys 
are constantly occupied in gathering the 
eggs, which are thickly deposited in the 
most inaccessible places. Fatal accidents 
are so frequent among these rocks that 
the Shetland people sometimes say to each 
other, 'Your grandfather fell, your father 
fell and you must follow, too/ Others 
boast over their companions on account of 



88 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

these very accidents by saying, 'Your father 
died in his bed, but mine went off like a 
man/ " 

"That isn't so wonderfully kind," said 
Malcolm. "I thought the people were so 
good to each other ?" 

"It is not intended for unkindness, but 
they like to boast a little now and then. 
These egg-gatherers are often suspended 
over projecting cliffs of many hundred feet 
by a single rope, which is so rubbed and 
cut by the sharp edges of rock that it 
sometimes breaks, and the unfortunate 
climber falls headlong to the immense 
depth below." 

" Oh !" was the general exclamation. 

" It is very dreadful to us" continued Miss 
Harson, " who know nothing of such dan- 
gers by experience ; but in Shetland, where 
violent deaths are not uncommon, the sur- 
vivors find comfort in the thought that at 
least ' he went off like a man.' Traveling 
among these islands, from one to another, 
is very difficult and dangerous, and a min- 
ister who had charge of two different 
churches that were separated by a broad 



SLIPPER Y PE TS. 89 

and dangerous ferry was often rowed by 
six men, who vainly tried to get him across. 
After pulling incessantly for three or four 
hours, and coming in sight of his church 
and the assembled congregation, he has 
been obliged to relinquish all hope of land- 
ing, while it was about equally difficult to 
reach the opposite shore." 

The children wondered that any one 
would live in such a place ; but presently 
Malcolm added : 

" I suppose, though, Miss Harson, that 
it's just what seals and such creatures like ?" 

" The rocks and the wild waters are cer- 
tainly like the places they inhabit," replied 
his governess, " and seals are frequently 
seen on the coasts of Shetland. Seal- 
hunting has always been one of the most 
profitable occupations among these barren 
islands, notwithstanding the superstition 
that the selkies, or hoff-fish, as the islanders 
call them, are fallen spirits, and that evil 
will certainly happen to him who kills one. 
They think that when the blood of a seal 
touches the water, the sea begins to rise 
and swell. Those who shoot them notice 



90 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

that gulls appear to watch carefully over 
them, and a Scotch naturalist declared that 
1 he had seen a gull scratch a seal to warn 
it of his approach' !" 

"What funny things animals do!" said 
Edith, in great amusement over this per- 
formance. 

" These harbor-seals, as they usually are," 
continued the young lady, "have very hu- 
man faces, and it is supposed that these 
have given rise to the absurd stories of 
mermaids which are so common in this re- 
gion. Ignorant people declare that they 
can easily be caught with the rather curious 
bait of a comb and looking-glass." 

"Were there ever such things as mer- 
maids?" asked Clara. 

" Never, dear ; but years ago, when peo- 
ple were very ignorant of natural history, 
a strong imagination could turn a seal's 
head, just seen above the water, into some- 
thing of this sort. The large brown eyes 
are quite different from those of an ordi- 
nary animal, and a harbor-seal clasping its 
young one with its fore flipper is very hu- 
man indeed. They are easily tamed, and 



SLIPPER Y PE TS. 9 I 

in Shetland a domestic seal is quite a com- 
mon sight. They are frequently caught in 
the caves which abound there, and in a 
short time they are so perfectly at home 
that they will shuffle along with any of the 
family who go to milk the cows, that they 
may get a drink. Sometimes they will 
take to the water and forage for food, but 
nearly always return." 

"I should think they'd have to hunt up 
something for themselves in such a poor 
place as Shetland," said Malcolm. 

"A naturalist had one which, he says, 
1 was taken by myself from a cave when 
only a few hours old, and in a day or two 
became as attached as a dog to me. The 
varied movements and sounds by which he 
expressed delight at my presence and re- 
gret at my absence were most affecting: 
these sounds were as like as possible to the 
inarticulate tones of the human voice. I 
know no animal capable of displaying more 
affection than he did, and his temper was 
the gentlest imaginable. I kept him for 
four or five weeks, feeding him entirely on 
warm milk from the cow ; in my temporary 



92 WATER-ANIMALS. 

absence buttermilk was given to him, and 
he died soon after/ " 

"What a pity!" exclaimed the children. 

"But how could buttermilk kill him?" 
asked Clara ; " it doesn't hurt pigs." 

Miss Harson smiled at this excellent 
reason as she replied : 

" It may be good for pigs, but evidently 
it is not good for young seals ; and I sup- 
pose, dear, that it killed him by disagreeing 
with him. Whether he had cramps or 
cholera morbus we are not able to tell." 

"We won't give our seals buttermilk, 
then," said Malcolm; — "so remember, 
Clara." 

His sister laughingly promised to bear it 
in mind, and their governess asked, quite 
gravely, if they wanted any more stories 
about seals. Any more? when that was 
the first approach to a story they had 
heard ! 

"Well, then, this same naturalist cap- 
tured another young seal, who soon became 
familiar with the household, but would allow 
no one to touch her except her master. She 
had an amusing habit of exploring the house, 



SLIPPER Y PE TS. 93 

and was evidently bent on examining every 
room, going up the stairs for this purpose 
with surprising ease. Her going down 
was even faster if she met any one who 
pretended to be angry at seeing her there. 
" ' She was fed from the first/ says her 
owner, 'on fresh fish alone, and grew and 
fattened considerably. We had her carried 
down daily in a handbarrow to the seaside, 
where an old excavation admitting the salt 
water was abundantly roomy and deep for 
her recreation and our observation. After 
sporting and diving for some time, she 
would come ashore, and seemed perfectly 
to understand the use of the barrow. 
Often she tried to waddle from the house 
to the water or from the latter to her apart- 
ment ; but finding this fatiguing and seeing 
preparations by her chairman, she would of 
her own accord mount her palanquin and 
thus be carried as composedly as any Hin- 
du princess. By degrees we ventured to 
let her go fairly into the sea, and she regu- 
larly returned after a short interval ; but 
one day, during a thick fall of snow, she 
was imprudently let off as usual, and, being 



94 WATER-ANIMALS. 

decoyed some distance out of sight of the 
shore by some wild ones which happened 
to be in the bay at the time, she either 
could not find her way back or voluntarily 
decamped. She was, we understood, killed 
shortly afterward in a neighboring- inlet. 
We had kept her about six months, and 
every moment she was becoming more 
familiar; we had dubbed her "Finna," and 
she seemed to know her name/ " 

" Oh !" exclaimed Edith, sighing almost 
as if she had lost a seal, " how sorry they 
must have been ! And how funny it must 
have looked to see a seal going up and 
down stairs !" 

" I should think she would have tumbled 
down every time she tried it," said Mal- 
colm ; "how could such a slippery creature 
get up stairs, Miss Harson, when she hadn't 
anything to hold on with ?" 

" You forget her flippers," was the reply ; 
" and I have really seen two seals go up 
and down stairs, so I know that it can be 
done." 

Three amazed pairs of eyes were staring 
as hard as they could at the speaker, while 



SLIPPERY PETS. 95 

their owners wondered where Miss Harson 
could have been when this took place. 

" These seals were on exhibition at the 
New York Aquarium," continued the young 
lady, " ever so many years ago, when I was 
a little girl, and they were named ' Ned ' 
and * Fanny/ Both would walk up a short 
flight of stairs to a platform — such funny, 
floundering walking as it was ! — when 
called by name, and Fanny, who was the 
more accomplished of the two, would ring 
a bell for dinner, bow to the spectators and 
then eagerly catch and devour the pieces 
of fish thrown by the keeper from a pail in 
his hand. She was a most intelligent-look- 
ing creature, and evidently took great pride 
in 'showing off;' but when Ned tried to 
put himself forward she always pushed 
him aside. She seemed really jealous of 
any attempt on his part to attract public 
attention." 

The children were so much amused with 
Fanny that they "wished there had been 
more of her;" and then Miss Harson re- 
membered reading about two seals in the 
zoological garden at Amsterdam which were 



96 WATER-ANIMALS. 

so fond of their keeper that they could 
recognize his voice a long way off, and 
would run to meet him. 

" These seals also became attached to an 
old gentleman and his little granddaughter, 
who often went to see them in company 
with a little woolly dog, and who always 
took the seals something nice to eat. These 
animals were kept in a large pond, and 
they would come out of the water on see- 
ing their friends, and sit down with them to 
have a good time on the sand. The small 
dog was very lively on these occasions, and 
he and the seals would frolic together as 
though they belonged to the same family, 
and shared the fruit and cakes from the little 
girl's basket. One day, however, in the 
midst of their fun, the dog fell into the 
pond, and after struggling for a moment 
in the water he sank. The seals uttered a 
cry of dismay as he disappeared, and then, 
shuffling to the pond, they plunged in. In 
an instant the larger one had seized the 
half-drowned dog, and, carrying him very 
tenderly in his mouth, placed the dripping 
animal at his little mistress's feet." 




AN AFFECTIONATE SEAL. 



98 WA TER-ANIMA LS. 

"That was splendid P' said Malcolm. 
"They're the best seals we have had yet." 

"One who has visited the London zoo- 
logical gardens speaks of several interest- 
ing seals which he saw there/' continued 
Miss Harson. " He says : 

" * They would climb out of the tank and 
stand upon the stone ledge, leaning against 
the iron railing begging for food, and then, 
quick as lightning, throw themselves into 
the water, splashing us well if we were not 
on the lookout for their pranks. In the 
water they would dive, twist, turn and roll 
with wonderful grace and swiftness. Their 
keeper was an old Frenchman whom they 
well knew, and whose kind treatment at- 
tached them to him. He put a chair within 
the railing and sat on it. At his call the 
seals would climb to his side ; then, at his 
word, they would dive into the water again. 
They clambered into his lap, and kissed him 
with their wet noses at his bidding. He 
left the chair, and in response to his com- 
mand a seal took his place on it, to plunge 
again, when bidden, into the water/ ' 

It was, of course, a great sorrow that 



THE SEAL COUNTRY. 99 

these charming animals could not be seen; 
but Miss Harson comforted her eager little 
flock by telling them that just as wonderful 
seals might be in store for them in the 
future, when they could better appreciate 
them from having learned so much about 
them beforehand. 

" It is said" continued the young lady, 
" that a very highly-educated seal, exhibited 
in Paris, could utter some words quite 
plainly, so that visitors could easily distin- 
guish such words as ■ cake/ * coffee/ ' eat/ 
4 thank you / and even short sentences, 
like Vive le roi ! Bonjour, monsieur, and ye 
suis F7 r anqais ! But this seems an impossi- 
bility, and the nearest approach to w r ords 
was probably like the sounds made by the 
young seal that died of buttermilk. ,, 



CHAPTER VI. 

SOME BIG COUSINS. 

" T 'X J HAT dreadful-looking creatures !" 
\ V exclaimed everybody generally ; 
and they certainly were not pretty in the 
picture. 

Edie said that the biggest one in front 
was awful — it looked like an old man and a 
monkey, and it had tusks like an elephant; 
but here Miss Harson stopped her: 

" It is not ■ awful/ dear, for it is a very 
harmless creature unless attacked; and 
you know I have told you how seldom that 
word can be used. It does look something 
like an old man and a monkey when you 
see the full face, but its tusks are not much 
like those of an elephant, as we shall see 
presently. This very ungainly-looking ani- 
mal is a big cousin of the seal, and it is 
known by the various names of wahus, 
morse and sea-hoi'se. It is seldom found 
100 



SOME BIG COUSINS. 1 01 

out of the Arctic regions, although an 
occasional one has been killed off the coast 
of Shetland. Like the polar bear, how- 
ever, the walrus has evidently been formed 
by its Creator for a life among icy seas, 
and there it is now found, often in large 
herds. It is described as ' somewhat re- 
sembling an enormous pig, with coarse 
whiskers, a pair of huge tusks descending 
from the upper jaw, flippers instead of legs, 
and no tail whatever. A full-grown walrus 
weighs from twenty-five hundred to three 
thousand pounds, and his skin, blubber and 
tusks constitute his attractions in the eyes 
of the hunter.' " 

" I should think/' said Malcolm, " that his 
tusks would be always in the way when he 
tries to eat." 

" On the contrary, they are of great use 
to him in scraping up from the rocks and 
out of the sand the mussels and other 
shellfish on which he loves to feed, and 
also to grapple and get along with, for 
they help the animal in raising itself on the 
ice. They are also powerful weapons of 
defence against its enemies, especially the 



102 WATER-ANIMALS. 

fierce, prowling polar bear. The elephant's 
tusks generally grow outward, but those 
of the walrus slant in an opposite direction, 
but can, in spite of this, be used like great 
swords. 

" Although the walrus seldom attacks 
men, even when they are swimming among 
the fragments of a crushed boat, he is by 
no means cowardly. He will readily fight 
any animal which he does not suspect 
of having a harpoon concealed about it. 
Not only do the bulls fight savagely among 
themselves, but a walrus will often engage 
and defeat the polar bear. The latter finds 
it comparatively useless to hug an animal 
which is defended by an unusually tough 
hide lined with layers of elastic blubber, 
while, on the other hand, the walrus inflicts 
painful, and frequently fatal, wounds on the 
bear with his sharp curved tusks. If the 
walrus happens to have plenty of leisure 
on his hands, he will sometimes strike his 
tusks deep into the bear and drag him 
down to the bottom. Then, while the bear 
is drowning, the walrus tears his body 
into fragments with great dexterity and 



SOME BIG COUSINS. IO3 

leaves the pieces for the benefit of casual 
sharks." 

The children could not feel sorry for the 
polar bear, while the walrus rose considera- 
bly in their estimation. 

" He seems to have real paws in front," 
said Clara, looking at the picture; " don't 
they come out a great deal more than the 
seal's flippers ?" 

"Yes," replied her governess; "this 
animal gets along much better out of water 
than its smaller cousin, as it can support its 
great body quite clear of the ground. Its 
movements, however, are very awkward, 
its hind limbs shuffling along as if enclosed 
in a sack. Walruses have been found that 
were twelve, and even fourteen, feet long 
and nine feet around. These creatures 
were so heavy that it was almost impossible 
to turn them over. They are quite playful, 
in spite of their clumsiness, when at home 
in the icy sea, and in fine weather herds of 
them may be seen on large pieces of ice, 
where they roll and frolic about and bellow 
like so many bulls. After a period of these 
antics they all go to sleep, with the excep- 



1 04 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

tion of one who acts as a sentinel to warn 
them of any danger. They are very cau- 
tious animals, and the sentinel watches 
faithfully, but the only warning he gives 
when an enemy approaches is to rush to 
a place of safety ; and as the sleeping herd 
lie huddled on one another, the motion of 
one is felt by all the others, who ' instantly 
tumble, one over the other, into the sea — 
headforemost if possible, but failing that, 
anyhow.' " 

Malcolm thought it must be great fun to 
see them go over; but when his governess 
explained to him what travelers had to en- 
dure in the perils of an Arctic voyage to 
see this fun, he was not quite so enthusiastic 
about it. 

" Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen," contin- 
ued Miss Harson, " where the walrus par- 
ticularly loves to dwell, are not attractive 
places to human beings, and the only men 
ever found there are some ship's crew or 
an exploring-party in search of the North- 
west passage. Here the walrus revels, for 
as a general thing his enemies do not pur- 
sue him thus far ; but some time ago he is 



SOME BIG COUSINS. 105 

said to have been found near the Shetland 
Islands and on the whole extent of the Nor- 
way coast. He went farther and farther 
as the hunters encroached upon him, until 
he came to a halt in the icy seas around 
Spitzbergen. 

11 Even here, however, his active enemy 
the polar bear is perfectly at home, and 
when hungry he is always on the watch for 
animals asleep upon the ice, and tries to 
steal on them unawares as they dart 
through their breathing-holes. ' One sun- 
shiny day/ says a traveler, * a walrus nine 
or ten feet in length rose in a pool of 
water not very far from us, and after look- 
ing around drew his clumsy body upon the 
ice, where he rolled about for a time, and at 
length laid himself down to sleep. A bear 
which had probably been observing his 
movements crawled carefully upon the ice 
on the opposite side of the pool, and began 
to roll about also, but apparently more with 
design than amusement, as he gradually 
lessened the distance between him and his 
prey. The walrus, suspicious of his ad- 
vances, drew himself up for a hasty retreat 



1 06 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

into the water in case of a nearer acquaint- 
ance with his playful but treacherous visitor ; 
on which the bear was instantly motionless, 
as if in the act of sleep, but after a time 
began to lick his paws and clean himself, 
occasionally encroaching a little more upon 
his intended victim. 

" ' But even this artifice did not succeed ; 
the wary walrus was far too cunning to al- 
low himself to be entrapped, and suddenly 
plunged into the pool, which the bear no 
sooner observed than he threw off all dis- 
guise, rushed toward the spot and followed 
him in an instant into the water, where, I 
fear, he was as much disappointed in his 
meal as we were in the pleasure of wit- 
nessing a very interesting encounter.' V 

"I'm glad he got away from that horrid 
bear," said Edith, with great relief. 

" But think how hungry the poor bear 
was !" said her brother, teasingly. " Sup- 
pose, now, that when you wanted your 
dinner the oysters and chickens and all 
the rest of the things took to running 
away ?" 

" Well, they aren't alive," was the per- 



1 08 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

plexed reply. " But I know you're laughing 
at me, Malcolm/' 

"Well, you're * nine, anyway]" said this 
tease of a brother; and then Miss Harson 
had to take him in hand. 

"What does the walrus eat?" asked Clara. 

"Very much what the seal does; and, 
huge as the creature is, he seems to live on 
shellfish and sea-weeds. He is said, how- 
ever, to be fond of young seals, and he 
frequently swallows pebbles larger than 
walnuts. In captivity he has been fed on 
oatmeal and vegetables." 

" Do walruses act like seals?" asked Mal- 
colm; " I mean when caught and tamed." 

"They are not so intelligent," replied his 
governess, " and are quite too heavy to in- 
dulge in tricks, but young ones have occa- 
sionally been taken and exhibited. Of one 
of these it is said that * though quite young, 
it was nearly four feet in length, and when 
the person who used to feed it came into 
the room it would give him an affectionate 
greeting in a voice somewhat resembling 
the cry of a calf, but considerably louder. 
It walked about, but, owing to its weakness, 



SOME BIG COUSINS, IO9 

soon grew tired and lay down/ A young 
walrus is a very funny-looking object, being 
nearly as broad as it is long, and it seems 
to get from one place to another by a series 
of tumbles. Three of these comical crea- 
tures were caught some years ago by a 
yachting-party in the Arctic regions and 
kept in a pen on deck, where they were 
carefully fed, like babies, from a bottle. 
They soon became tame, and spent most 
of their time in sleeping, clamoring for food 
and grunting and squealing like so many 
pigs." 

Edith said she wouldn't care to have 
such pets, and the others fully agreed with 
her. 

" Little walruses, however, are considered 
by their mothers very charming," continued 
the young lady, " and they will protect them 
from danger at any risk to themselves. 
A voyager to Spitzbergen says : 

" 'We were greatly amused by the singu- 
lar and affectionate conduct of a walrus 
toward its young. In the vast sheet of ice 
which surrounded the ship there were 
occasionally many pools, and when the 



I IO 



IV A TER-ANIMALS. 



weather was clear and warm animals of 
various kinds would frequently rise and 
sport about in them, or crawl from the water 
upon the ice to bask in the warmth of the 




WALRUS AND YOUNG. 



sun. A walrus rose in one of these pools 
close to the ship, and, finding everything- 
quiet, dived down and brought up its 
young, which it held to its breast by press- 
ing it with its flipper. In this manner it 
moved about the pool, keeping in an erect 
posture and always directing the face of 
the young toward the vessel. On the 
slightest movement on board, the mother 
released her flipper and pushed the young 



SOME BIG COUSINS. Ill 

one under water, but when everything was 
quiet brought it up as before, and for a 
length of time continued to play about in 
the pool, to the great amusement of the 
seamen, who gave her credit for abilities in 
tuition which, though possessed of con- 
siderable sagacity, she hardly merited/ ' 

4< It must be great fun/' said Malcolm, 
rather wistfully, " to see such queer things 
up there among the icebergs. Wish it 
wasn't so cold/' 

"If it wasn't," replied his governess, 
" the ' things ' wouldn't be there ; besides, 
it is not only the cold that keeps us from 
going to Spitzbergen. So I think you will 
have to content yourself at Elmridge for a 
while longer ; the rest of us do not care to 
hunt walruses." 

"What do people hunt them for, Miss 
Harson ?" asked Clara. " Do they have 
fur, like seals ?" 

" No, dear; they have not fur, but they 
have very tough, valuable skins, which are 
used for a variety of purposes, principally 
for harness and sole leather. Between the 
skin and the flesh there is a great mass of 



112 IVA TER-ANIMALS. 

blubber, which is made into oil ; while the 
ivory of the tusks is used for a great many 
small articles. When a walrus is killed he 
is dragged on the ice and stripped of his 
valuables. The skin, with the blubber 
adhering to it, and the tusks are brought 
to the sloop, where the blubber is separated 
from the skin and stowed away in tanks 
without being ' tried out/ The skins are 
packed in salt and the tusks are carefully 
laid away. The blubber is generally sold 
for about forty dollars, the skin for fifteen 
and the ivory for ten, so that a full-grown 
walrus, when killed, is worth sixty-five 
dollars." 

" I shouldn't think a walrus would be 
easy to catch," said Malcolm, " if he is so 
cunning in getting away from the polar 
bear and has a sentinel to watch while he 
is asleep." 

" He is neither easy to catch nor easy 
to kill," was the reply; "not that he is a 
dangerous animal in himself, but because 
of the terriblv cold, bare regions where he 
chooses to dwell. The walrus-sloops are 
often wrecked on the rocks that belt the 



SOME BIG COUSINS. II3 

coast of Spitzbergen, or are walled up in 
some fiord or cave, into which they may 
have ventured, by the sudden packing of 
the ice. In the former case the crew may 
take to their boats, and either steer for 
Norway or try to fall in with some other 
vessel of the walrus fleet. When, however, 
the Arctic pack sweeps down and impris- 
ons an incautious sloop, her people are com- 
pelled to winter in the frightful cold of Spitz- 
bergen, where the thermometer often sinks 
to 45 below zero, and even lower." 

"What did it feel like to be so cold?" 
the children wondered ; but Miss Harson 
said that the danger lay in not feeling at 
all, as those who were exposed to such 
bitter cold often froze to death. 

"The walrus-hunters are chiefly Nor- 
wegians, who are better accustomed to 
intense cold than we are ; and the two 
walrus-boats attached to each vessel are 
very strongly built and painted white, so that 
they will not be noticed amid the ice, thus 
giving the cautious animal warning and a 
chance to escape before he is attacked. A 
peculiar kind of harpoon is used for secur- 

8 



1 14 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

ing the prey, and lances are carried with 
which to kill him after he is harpooned. 

" But the walrus, it seems, is not an easy 
beast to kill. The hunters usually try to 
steal on him in their boats while he is sleep- 
ing on an iceberg, in what he considers 
a warm and sunny spot. He sleeps so 
lightly that it is probably easier to catch six, 
or possibly eight, weasels asleep than it is 
to approach one sleeping walrus without 
waking him ; and it is necessary to be near 
the animal in order to harpoon him. There 
are also difficulties in the way of shooting 
a walrus. If he is not killed outright at 
the first shot, he will certainly roll into the 
water, sink to the bottom and die where he 
can be of no possible use to any one." 

"Well," said Edith, quite indignant at 
this view of the matter, " I should think 
they might care a little about the poor 
walrus !" 

"I am afraid they never do that, dear; 
hunters are apt to be quite unfeeling. It is 
well known to walrus-hunters that a mother 
will not desert her calf, but will carry it 
under her flipper or keep close to it, and that 




A WALRUS HUNT. 



1 1 6 WA TEN-ANIMALS. 

the rest of the herd will stay beside her. 
The harpooner will therefore attack a baby- 
walrus, if he sees one, rather than the 
largest grown animal, for he knows that 
its cries will keep the mother from escap- 
ing, and that her companions will not 
desert her. Sometimes, however, the wal- 
ruses have become indignant at such un- 
feeling conduct, and turned upon their pur- 
suers and torn the boat to pieces. But 
this was all the harm they did, and instead 
of attacking their enemies, they only im- 
proved the chance for getting out of their 
way. It is said that a Norwegian skipper 
was once seized by a cow-w r alrus and 
dragged three times down to the bottom ; 
but the skipper declared that the animal 
took him for her calf, and meant to be 
affectionate instead of revengeful." 

" I don't see how he got away from her," 
said Clara ; " and it was wonderfully good 
of those other walruses not to eat up the 
hunters after they got them into the 
water." 

" My dear child," was the laughing reply, 
" they probably had no more desire to eat 




COOL SPORT. 



1 1 8 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

them up than we should have, as the walrus 
is not carnivorous, except in the matter of 
young seals and shellfish. At least he has 
never been known to feed upon human 
flesh." 

" Does any one feed on his flesh, Miss 
Harson ?" asked Malcolm. 

"Yes, I believe the Norwegians will eat 
it, and the heart is considered quite a deli- 
cacy. But the Eskimos are its greatest 
admirers. To them there is no greater 
treat than a kettle well filled with walrus- 
blubber, and to the natives along Behring's 
Strait this quadruped is as valuable as is the 
palm to the sons of the desert. Their ca- 
noes are covered with its skin ; their weap- 
ons and sledge-runners and many useful 
articles are formed from its tusks ; their 
lamps are filled with its oil ; and they them- 
selves are fed with its fat and its fibre. So 
thick is the skin that a bayonet is almost 
the only weapon which can pierce it. Cut 
into shreds, it makes excellent cordage, 
being especially adapted for wheel-ropes. 

"You see, then, that walrus-hunting is 
not carried on from love of cruelty to 



SOME BIG COUSINS. II9 

harmless animals, but because without this 
valuable aid the poor people whose lot is 
cast in frozen regions would scarcely be 
able to live at all." 



CHAPTER VII. 

SOME MISSION-WORK. 

EDITH'S twisted ankle was now quite 
well again, and she was skating away 
as merrily as ever, in spite of frequent tum- 
bles. Teasino- Malcolm suggested that she 
should have one long skate made to fit her 
back, as that was the position she seemed 
to like best on the ice. 

But Edie only laughed at this with rosy 
cheeks and sparkling eyes, and Sim Jute 
and his friends thought the merry little 
lady, who always seemed so good-natured, 
about the prettiest picture to be seen any- 
where — excepting, perhaps, Miss Harson, 
for whom their admiration had never 
cooled — while Clara was pronounced "a 
regular beauty" and Malcolm "a tip-top 
fellow/' It is so easy to win with a little 
well-directed kindness ! and some very 
troublesome boys had been judiciously set 
120 



SOME MISSION-WORK. 121 

to work and kept out of the mischief that 
is sure to go hand in hand with idleness. 

It was a funny enough little shanty that 
had sprung up on the side of the pond far- 
thest from Elmridge, and in the line of quite 
a stream of travel ; for it was near the sta- 
tion, and so, besides the skaters, there were 
other people who liked the comfort of a 
cup of hot coffee in cold weather. Gentle- 
men who had several miles to drive after 
leaving the cars would stop and patronize 
Sim, and even Mr. Kyle had tasted his 
coffee and said that it did him credit. 

How that wooden box with a roof and 
with a stove-pipe sticking out at one side had 
ever got together it would be hard to say ; 
but the carpenter did a little and the boys 
did a great deal ; somebody gave an old 
stove ; Mr. Kyle gave a ton of coal ; Miss 
Harson gave several pounds of coffee ; 
and Sim worked out the milk and su^ar 
in odd jobs. Then the pennies began to 
come in, and this very original coffee-room 
was doing a good business. 

It was a proud and happy moment for 
the young proprietor when Miss Harson 



122 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

stood there drinking a cup of coffee and 
telling him how well he had done ; and the 
young lady smiled as her glance fell on a 
box of peanuts and a jar of candy. Sim 
evidently had an eye to the children from 
the district-school, many of whom passed 
his " store " on their way back and forth, 
and who were not likely to be attracted by 
cups of coffee. 

"Why, Sim, ,, said Miss Harson pleasant- 
ly, "you are a born merchant! Have you 
thought of what you are going to do with 
your money when the skating season is 
over? — I mean after paying your mother 
for her trouble in making the coffee ?" 

For Mrs. Jute, after calling the plan "a 
pack of silly nonsense/' had finally con- 
sented to make the coffee, which she did 
very well, and she was now quite proud of 
Sim and his success. For no one in their 
family had accomplished so much before, 
and respectable, well-to-do people avoided 
the Jutes, who bore anything but a good 
name. The father had been idle and shift- 
less, and died a miserable drunkard ; the 
others lived as best they could, having 



SOME MISSION-WORK. 1 23 

their wretched little house rent free and 
working and begging alternately. 

But Sim had begun to long- for better 
things, and this money which he earned by 
honest labor was very precious to him. 
He had looked upon it as entirely his own, 
and he now replied, rather unwillingly, 

" How much must I give her?" 

"Why not give her all?' ' was the unex- 
pected reply. " This seems the better way, 
for a son is bound to take care of his 
mother." 

Not very long ago Sim Jute would have 
whistled at such a proposition as this; but 
now, meeting the steady smiling eyes that 
were looking into his, he promised to let 
his mother decide as to what should be his 
portion. 

Poor woman ! she had been so little used 
to kind or pleasant acts that when Sim 
poured his money into her lap she threw 
her apron over her head and cried. 

"It's the coffee-money, mother; and now 
you'll have a decent shawl and go to 
church of a Sunday, as Miss Harson has 
wanted us to do." 



124 WATER-ANIMALS. 

"No, Sim," was the reply; "I've not 
been much of a mother to you, but now 
you've shamed me into it. Take you the 
money and buy some shoes and a warm 
coat to vour back." 

Then Sim objected, for he was now quite 
bent on his mother having it all, those un- 
expected tears having melted him com- 
pletely. 

Perhaps Miss Harson had anticipated 
this, for just in the midst of the unusual 
scene there arrived a parcel from Elmridge 
for Mrs. Jute, and in it were found a warm 
blanket shawl, a partly-worn dress and a 
very respectable bonnet, with coat, shoes 
and hat for Sim. 

" Praise the Lord, and thank Miss Har- 
son !" exclaimed Mrs. Jute, gratefully. Then, 
gathering herself energetically together 
again, she arose a new woman, twisted 
back her hair and put Sim's money into a 
teapot on the closet-shelf. 

" Now go on with the store," said she, 
"and I'll make the coffee better than ever." 

She was as good as her word ; and 
before long some very nice sandwiches 



SOME MISSION-WORK. 1 25 

were added to the stock, so that the funny 
little shanty on the edge of the pond, 
where skaters and wayfarers could get 
coffee and sandwiches and peanuts and 
candy, became quite famous. 

Malcolm took it upon himself to instruct 
Sim in regard to seals and walruses, and 
it is scarcely necessary to say that these 
instructions were not quite so clear as Miss 
Harson would have made them. The re- 
sult was a vague idea in Sim's mind that 
these animals somehow grew with the ice, 
and that if he watched long enough at any 
opening on the pond he would be rewarded 
with a prize. 

" Sixty-five dollars/' said the boy to him- 
self, "is a big heap of money, and that's 
what the young gentleman said a walrus 'd 
bring.'' 

So Sim waited patiently for a walrus, 
with no very clear idea as to how he was to 
dispatch the great animal when it appeared; 
but he took no one into his confidence, and 
he even wished that people wouldn't want 
so many cups of coffee when he was occu- 
pied with something more profitable. 



126 WATER-ANIMALS. 

It all came out one day when the disap- 
pointed boy ventured to ask Miss Harson 
"if she knowd that them animals really 
come up through the ice ;" and after won- 
dering for a moment what he meant, the 
young lady decided that Malcolm was at 
the bottom of this curious notion. A sort 
of primer on natural history gave Sim great 
pleasure in his leisure hours, while Malcolm 
was advised, for the present, to learn instead 
of teaching. 

u Do you know, Miss Harson," said 
Edith, in a very coaxing way, "that you 
haven't told us a story, except little bits of 
ones, in ever so long?" 

"Yes, Miss Harson," added Clara; "you 
owe us one about seals, and another about 
walruses." 

" And I am going to read you one," re- 
plied their governess, smiling, " that is not 
in the least about either. I wrote it myself, 
and I hope you will enjoy it as well as if it 
were about seals or walruses. Shall I pro- 
ceed?" 

As there were no serious objections, Miss 
Harson read the story, which she called 



SOME MISSION-WORK. \2J 

PLANTING IT OUT. 

When the Waynes first moved into their 
new house it seemed perfectly delightful. 
It was such a pleasant change from the 
crowded city and a tall, narrow brick house 
to this pretty suburb, where they had plenty 
of garden-room and a wide house with 
numerous doors and windows, and what 
Lily called "all sorts of unexpected places 
in it" They seemed to be constantly mak- 
ing discoveries, and so far the discoveries 
had all been pleasant ones. 

The move was made in early autumn, 
when trees and vines and flowers were 
looking their very prettiest ; and the family, 
which consisted only of Mrs. Wayne and 
Lily, Mrs. Wayne's old school-friend Miss 
Goldsby, with the two maids Rosa and 
Becky, were soon quite settled and com- 
fortable, when suddenly they were intro- 
duced to some very unpleasant neighbors. 

The neighbors on each side of them 
were very nice, but there were some just 
beyond the end of the garden on whom 
they had not counted ; and Lily, who was 
just fifteen, and a little disposed to take 



128 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

matters into her own hands, came running 
in one day with flushed cheeks and flashing 
eyes, exclaiming that " two horrid boys were 
sitting on their fence, and would not get 
down. And they threw things at her!" 

The little lady looked very angry indeed ; 
and when her mother asked quietly, "What 
did you say to them, daughter?" she replied 
in great indignation, " I told them they had 
no right there on our fence, and if they 
didn't go away I'd send a policeman after 
them." 

"And what then?" 

"Why, then," bursting into tears, "they 
made faces at me and called me names ; 
and I don't like it a bit, there now !" 

Mrs. Wayne looked quite troubled at 
this state of affairs as she said to her 
friend, 

"I have been a little uneasy about that 
ugly little street back of us, which they call 
Poor Man's lane, and I am afraid that ■ my 
duty to my neighbor' has been too long 
delayed. What can we do, Sarah?" 

Miss Goldsby was a very energetic-look- 
ing lady, with a shrewd, pleasant face, and 



SOME MISSION-WORK. 1 29 

she was never idle a moment, although she 
appeared to do very little work for herself. 
She was sewing now very diligently, and, 
clipping off her thread, she replied as 
briefly, 

" Plant them out" 

Lily looked up in amazement, and even 
Mrs. Wayne was puzzled. 

"I have heard," continued Miss Goldsby 
as she selected the right shade of silk from 
the brilliant tangle before her, " of planting 
out unsightly views with a- thick trellis- 
work of vines. — Do you understand my 
meaning?" 

"But they'd tear 'em all down, Aunt 
Sarah/' replied Lily, who did not in the 
least understand; "they'd just sit on 'em, 
and it wouldn't do any good." 

Miss Goldsby laughed quietly, and Mrs. 
Wayne said with a smile, 

" I begin to see a little light. The vines, 
I think, are figurative, and the screen we 
are to put up is one of kind deeds and 
Christian training — something like a mis- 
sion-school, for instance?" 

"Very much like it, indeed," was the 
9 



1 30 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

reply ; " I know of no better way of trans- 
forming ignorant, vicious neighbors into 
decent members of society. I really pine 
after the two boys who treated Lily so 
rudely, and must have them for my own 
special scholars. " 

" And the Epiphany season is the very 
time to tell them of the dear Lord, about 
whom perhaps the poor things have never 
heard/ ' said Mrs. Wayne, softly. 

It seemed to little Miss Lily a very funny 
way of getting rid of ill-behaved neighbors; 
but it was not long before she thoroughly 
entered into the spirit of this strange 
"planting out," and even smiled benevo- 
lently upon her two fence enemies. This 
did not come about, however, without some 
trouble. 

Such a miserable, dirty, hopeless-looking 
place as Poor Man's lane was ! Two or 
three families living in one little house that 
was scarcely big enough for two people ; 
most of the men out of work, and sitting 
or lying around talking of hard times and 
railing against rich men ; while the women 
gossiped with each other and left the chil- 



SOME MISSION-WORK. 131 

dren to take care of themselves. The 
poor little things did this wonderfully well, 
considering, and they were constantly " see- 
ing after " the younger ones. 

When the ladies began their visits to 
collect scholars for a mission-school, a fierce- 
looking woman said to them, 

" I s'pose you've come to complain of 
my Tommy, if you're the folks that moved 
into the big house beyond there. But 
there's no use in tellin' tales, for I'm just 
sick of hearin' 'em, and I can't do nothin' 
with him. He gets a beating every day 
to make him behave, but the more I whip 
him, the worse he acts. You're welcome 
to beat him, too, whenever you can ketch 
him." 

This was not likely to be very often ; but 
Miss Goldsby turned kindly to Tommy, 
who was latching- and unlatching the door 
while his mother gave this unflattering 
account of him, and said, 

"We want you next Sunday afternoon 
to come and bring some other boys to our 
mission-school and help us sing. Will you 
come, Tommy?" 



132 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

"Dunno," replied the young gentleman 
as he rushed out of the house. 

"He's bad!" said his mother as she 
gazed after him with threatening eyes, 
" but he does sing first-rate. Sings hymns 
too, though you wouldn't believe it ; he's 
for ever screechin' ' I want to be an an- 
gel,' and actin' like the Old Scratch all the 
time." 

Poor Tommy ! the visitors thought he 
had very little chance to " behave ;" and 
when he appeared, on the very next Sun- 
day, with his especial crony "Bangs," he 
was given a seat of honor and treated so 
politely that he felt quite uncomfortable. 
But Miss Goldsby knew just what to do 
with him, and she soon decided that sitting 
still was not one of Tommy's strong points. 
He must have active employment to work 
off his constant propensity to get into mis- 
chief, so he was made librarian, to the great 
admiration of the others, although this only 
meant carrying the books around. 

But Tommy was a sight as he carried 
them, gathering up a huge pile that reached 
to his chin, and took more strength to 



SOME MISSION-WORK. 1 33 

manage properly than he possessed, while 
he looked as if no work could possibly be 
so important ; and his queer, ill-fitting coat 
and the ra^s at his knees would have been 
laughed at had not many of the other chil- 
dren looked even queerer. But the funniest 
part of Tommy was his head, on the back 
of which the hair grew just like feathers, 
sticking up and spreading out in a way that 
made Miss Goldsby think of an Indian 
chief. 

She smiled pleasantly, however, at the 
little fellow tugging his burden along, and 
told him that she should call him " the 
willing one." Tommy looked sheepish, 
and felt a pleasant glow of contentment 
that made him forget to behave badly. 

" Bangs/' who got his name because of 
his front hair, that curled up and stuck out 
like a girl's, carried a burden too, but it 
was one that he brought with him. It was 
in the form of a small girl who looked 
cross and heavy and answered to the name 
of " Tilda Jane." " Bangs," otherwise Dan, 
was her brother and nurse, and he seldom 
thought of moving without her. She was a 



1 34 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

large armful for two years old, and she was 
generally crying — for no reason, that any 
one could see, but because she liked it. 
Dan was as good to her as possible, and at 
home she had things quite her own way ; 
but still she cried. 

Tilda Jane's mouth was drawn down at 
the corners now, but there were no tears 
to be seen, and her round eyes were wide 
open with wonder at the doings of the 
mission-school. She liked all the faces 
and the singing, and whenever her brother 
held up his hand and promptly answered 
some question, she looked at him quite 
approvingly. 

He was a bright little fellow, this " Bangs," 
queer as he looked in a girl's sacque that 
clothed him to the waist and a shabby old 
pair of knickerbockers below. But there 
had been great scrabbling in Poor Man's 
lane to find clothes of any sort that 
were fit to go to school in, and no one 
was particular about having things to 
match. 

It seemed strange enough to these little 
waifs to hear so much about the blessed 



SOME MISSION-WORK. 1 35 

Saviour and his caring for them, and at 
first they could not understand it at all. 
Their idea of coming to mission-school 
was to be " dressed up like folks " and to 
be amused ; but this strange new story 
came to them in all its freshness and filled 
their minds with wonder. 

Week after week the good work went 
on, and before Ion? there was a mothers' 
meeting and a sort of club for men. Poor 
Man's lane woke up by slow degrees, and 
the children, with their hymns and what 
they learned at school about the Lord and 
Saviour, had much to do with this. Work 
was found for some of the men, and dirty 
houses and loud, scolding voices grew to be 
less common. 

Mrs. Wayne's garden fence was no longer 
used to climb on ; and one memorable after- 
noon, in return for a sweet smile, Tommy 
told Miss Lily, in a shamefaced way, that 
he was " downright sorry he'd sassed her 
so." 

"And /am sorry I lost my temper," was 
the frank reply ; " we'll both try to do better 
in future, Tommy." 



I36 WATER-ANIMALS. 

"The 'planting out' is beginning to tell," 
said Miss Goldsby, " and the unsightly view 
of Poor Man's lane as it was now scarcely 
shows at all." 

The story seemed to give great satisfac- 
tion, except, as Edie complained, " it wasn't 
long enough ;" but Miss Harson laughingly 
declared that she couldn't remember ever 
telling this little girl a story that was long 
enough. 

" I see !" said Malcolm in great delight, 
after a moment or two of deep thought. 
" Don't you mean the story, Miss Harson, 
for us and Sim and the rest of them down 
there at the pond ? And aren't we trying 
to plant them out?" 

11 1 think we are doing something of that 
sort, Malcolm, and we have already seen 
most encouraging results. Now let us see 
what other species of Arctic water-animals 
are left for us to explore." 

"Isn't Sim Jute a kind of Arctic water- 
animal?" asked Clara. "We found him 
down on the ice, where he always seems to 
be." 



SOME MISSION-WORK. 1 37 

Every one laughed at this idea, and Miss 
Harson said, 

" We will put him in that class, Clara, and 
then he will not seem out of place in our 
present talks/' 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SEA-LIONS. 

" r I ^HIS evening/' said Miss Harson, 

X "we will fancy ourselves in San 
Francisco." 

There were various exclamations of sur- 
prise at this announcement, for it did not 
seem reasonable to expect water-animals 
to be frisking about in such a thickly- 
populated place. 

" We are there, if you say so," responded 
Malcolm ; " and now, ma'am, may we know 
what we are to do next ?" 

" Go somewhere else," was the smiling 
reply. " But I have mystified you long 
enough. Take the large map, and see 
here, close to San Francisco, this group of 
dots marked Farallon Isles. They are 
really twenty miles west of the city, and 
we cannot very well get to them without 
going to San Francisco. Not always then, 

138 



SEA-LIONS. 1 39 

for they are the hardest to reach and the 
least worth reaching, perhaps, of any 
known islands. 

"Then why do people go there, Miss 
Harson ?" asked Edith, not altogether 
fancying the journey, even in imagination. 

" It is very rarely that any one goes 
there, dear ; and we are going there to- 
night only to see some still bigger cousins 
of the walrus, which we can scarcely find 
in such numbers anywhere else. These 
huge creatures are called sea-lions, and 
they appear to have things all their own 
way at the Farallon Islands. " 

" Does no one live there ?" 

" Only the lighthouse-keeper and his fam- 
ily. Think of it, Clara — one solitary family 
in that wild, lonesome place ! These islands 
are a mere group of picturesque rocks, and 
on the highest point of the most southern 
island, three hundred and forty feet above 
the sea, is a lighthouse with a fine revolv- 
ing light which can be seen for many miles. 
The islands are said to consist of broken 
rocks, mostly barren and bare, with plenty 
of sharp peaks, several caves, and here 



140 WATER-ANIMALS. 

and there a few weeds and a little grass. 
At one point there is a small beach, and at 
another a depression, but the fury of the 
waves makes landing at all times difficult 
and for the most part impossible/' 

"I don't see, then," said Edith, "how we 
are going to get there." 

" The difficulty seems to have been pro- 
vided for, and some one who knows has 
told us all about it. The gulls and sea- 
lions are not disturbed by strangers, for 
travelers seldom brave the dangers of a 
visit to the Farallon Islands, where the 
wind blows fiercely most of the time and 
the ocean is so rough that it is impossible 
to get there without being seasick. There 
are a great many curious things to be seen 
there, however, and first of these is the 
lighthouse. 

" Farallon Island light is one of the most 
important and powerful on our Western 
coast, and the fog-whistle there is a very 
curious contrivance. It is a huge trumpet 
that is blown by the rush of air through a 
cave or passage connecting with the ocean, 
the mouthpiece of the fog-whistle being 



SEA- LIONS. 141 

fixed against the aperture in the rock ; and 
the breaker, dashing in with venomous 
spite, or the huge bulging waves which 
would dash a ship to pieces and drown her 
crew in a single effort, now blows the whis- 
tle and warns the mariner off. The sound 
thus produced has been heard at a distance 
of seven or eight miles." 

"That's just splendid!" exclaimed Mal- 
colm — " to make the wicked old waves work 
and do some good, instead of killing peo- 
ple ! If they were really alive, as they 
seem to be, wouldn't they be mad at having 
to blow that whistle ?" 

Miss Harson laughingly thought that 
they would, and said that it seemed particu- 
larly comical to make these instruments of 
destruction work against themselves. 

"This very original fog- whistle," contin- 
ued the young lady, " depends for its blow- 
ing upon the irregular coming in of the 
waves, and also upon their irregular force, 
so that it is blown somewhat as an idle boy 
would blow his penny trumpet. The light- 
house-keeper's family lead a very lonely 
life, cut off, as they often are in winter, 



142 WATER-ANIMALS. 

from all communication with other human 
beings, even the vessel that brings their 
food and other supplies not being able to 
reach them for weeks at a time." 

"And don't they get anything to eat?" 
asked Edith in dismay. 

" Not from outside, dear; but they prob- 
ably provide for just such delays by keep- 
ing a supply of necessaries on hand. 
People so peculiarly situated must always 
be prepared for a siege of bad weather." 

"And there are the sea-birds and sea- 
lions," added Malcolm: "I suppose they 
can eat them if they are starving." 

"Yes, if they can catch them," was the 
reply. "An animal larger than an ox is 
not very easily turned into food, especially 
as he keeps clear of places in which it 
would be convenient to capture him. The 
house in which this solitary family live 
seems to be in the midst of a perpetual 
storm : ? The ocean roars in their ears day 
and night; the boom of the surf is their 
constant and only music ; the wild scream 
of the sea-birds, the howl of the sea-lions, 
the whistle and shriek of the gale, the dull, 



SEA- LIONS. 143 

threatening thunder of the vast breakers, — 
are the dreary and desolate sounds which 
lull them to sleep at night and assail their 
ears when they wake/ " 

11 Ugh !" exclaimed Clara in a very dis- 
gusted tone; "I wouldn't live in such a 
horrid place !" 

" I know, dear," replied her governess, 
smiling, " that you have a great aversion to 
disagreeable things, and that you like every- 
thing about you to be dainty and delicate ; 
but if you were the lighthouse-keepers 
daughter, instead of Mr. Kyle's, you would 
have to live in just such a horrid place. It 
is pleasant to think that it does not seem 
to the people who are accustomed to it 
nearly so dreadful as it does to us ; yet 
they must often suffer many inconveniences 
and discomforts. " 

"I suppose the sea-lions have a good 
time of it?" said Malcolm. 

"They certainly do not suffer for want 
of society, as they are gathered by thou- 
sands on the cliffs of the Farallon Islands, 
which they have selected as a favorite place 
of residence ; and here they enjoy them- 



144 WATER-ANIMALS. 

selves by barking, howling, shrieking and 
roaring in the caves and on the steep, 
sunny slopes. They resemble seals in ap- 
pearance, but are much larger, often measur- 
ing eleven feet and weighing twelve hun- 
dred pounds. They are not so numerous, 
however, as the seals, nor so valuable. 

" It is said to be an interesting sight to 
see these marine monsters at play in the 
surf, and to watch the superb skill with 
which they know how to control their own 
motions when a huge wave seizes them 
and seems likely to dash them to pieces 
against the rocks. They love to lie in the 
sun upon the bare and warm rocks, and 
here they sleep crowded together and lying 
upon each other in inextricable confusion. 
The bigger the animal, the greater his am- 
bition appears to be to climb to the highest 
summit ; and when a huge, slimy beast has 
with infinite squirming attained a solitary 
peak, he does not tire of raising his sharp- 
pointed, maggot-like head and complacently 
looking about him." 

The children could scarcely understand 
how a creature like an immense seal could 




10 



146 WATER-ANIMALS. 

climb a peak, and Miss Harson laughing- 
ly said that it was a fact in natural history 
which must be believed without being un- 
derstood : 

11 These sea-lions, it appears, are not very 
lovable creatures in any way ; and a traveler 
describes them as 'a rough set of brutes 
— rank bullies, I should say ; for I have 
watched them repeatedly as a big fellow 
shouldered his way among his fellows, 
reared his huge front to intimidate some 
lesser one which had secured a favorite 
spot, and first with howls, and, if this did 
not suffice, with teeth and main force, ex- 
pelled the weaker from his lodgment. The 
smaller sea-lions, at least those which have 
left their mothers, appear to have no rights 
which any one is bound to respect. They 
get out of the way with an abject prompt- 
ness which proves that they live in terror 
of the stronger members of the community ; 
but they do not give up their places without 
harsh complaints and piteous groans/ ' 

"What hateful things!" exclaimed Edith. 
" I don't think sea-lions are nice at all." 

"They cannot be called pleasant or 



SEA- LIONS. 147 

amiable," replied her governess ; "and you 
must remember that these same little ones 
which you pity so much now are just as 
bad when they get their size and strength. 
It seems to be like struggling for a front 
window, for these animals evidently want 
the places where they can see the most." 

This made them all laugh, it seemed so 
ridiculous for animals who live in the water 
to scramble for high places on land, where 
they could look around and view the 
country. 

11 How do they catch sea-lions, Miss Har- 
son ?" asked Malcolm. 

"They are often caught with a lasso, 
which, strange as it may sound, is really 
the easiest way of getting at them. The 
best sea-lion catcher is a Spaniard, to whom 
the lasso is like a fifth hand or like his 
trunk to the elephant. Stealing up to a 
sleeping herd, he fastens his eye on the 
biggest one of the lot, and, biding his time, 
at the first motion of the animal with un- 
erring skill flings his loose rawhide noose, 
and then holds on for dear life." 

" Can't the sea-lion drag him into the 



1 48 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

water ?" said Clara; " for, of course, he 
wants to run away." 

" He could," was the reply, "if the Span- 
iard went alone. But he knows too much 
about sea-lions to do this, and there are 
plenty of men at hand to help him. The 
creature tugging so desperately at the 
other end of the rope has the strength of 
at least half a dozen men, and would cer- 
tainly get away if the lasso could not be 
turned around a solid rock. Another diffi- 
culty in catching this huge seal is the ten- 
derness of its skin, which has been made 
very soft by its life in the water, and is 
easily cut by the lasso. A very moderate 
pressure too will break its bones, and, 
large as the creature is, rough handling 
will soon kill it." 

11 Don't they want it killed ?" asked Edith. 

" Not usually, dear, for when taken in 
this way it is intended for exhibition. We 
read that ' as quickly as possible the cap- 
tured sea-lion is stuffed into a strong box 
or cage, and here, in a cell too narrow to 
permit movement, it roars and yelps in 
helpless fury until it is transported to its 



SEA- LIONS. I49 

tank. Wild and fierce as it is, it seems very 
rapidly to reconcile itself to the tank-life. 
If the narrow space of its big bath-tub 
frets it, you do not perceive it, for hunger 
is its chief passion ; and with a moderately 
full stomach the animal does well in cap- 
tivity if supplied with sufficient water/ ' 

" 1 don't think much of sea-lions," said 
Clara; "all that they do is to quarrel and 
make a noise. I do wonder, Miss Harson, 
if you are going to give us a story 
to-night?" 

"About sea-lions, of which you do not 
think much ? They are not very interest- 
ing, certainly, but they are curious and 
worth learning something about. I am 
afraid that my story, if I told one, would 
have to be about a lighthouse; and how 
can I tell whether you would like that?" 

The young lady seemed to be enveloped, 
for a moment, in a perfect cloud of children, 
who evidently thought that a series of over- 
whelming caresses would be the best way 
of removing her doubts. 

"I know that it's nice," said Edith, 
" whatever it is ; but I shall like it a great 



150 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

deal better if you say it all out of your 
own head/' 

"Would you mind my reading it?" was 
the smiling reply ; " it would not sound half 
so well if I had to make it up as I went 
along." 

" She's got it all ready," exclaimed Mal- 
colm triumphantly as Miss Harson pro- 
duced a paper, " and I know it's just 
splendid !" 

" A thing may be ' resplendent ' with light 
or with jewels," replied his governess, " but 
such a term will not apply to my little 
story." 

AN EVENING IN A LIGHTHOUSE. 

The lighthouse was lonely, as all light- 
houses are, but it was not so desolate as 
the one we have just read about at the Far- 
allon Islands. Mr. James, the keeper, lived 
in a neat cottage with his wife and daughter, 
and the tower was connected with it by a 
covered passage-way. It was a very com- 
fortable place, and a mile away there was a 
small village where Nellie James went to 
school. 



152 WA TER- ANIMALS. 

Mr. James often said that his fifteen-year- 
old daughter was "his right-hand man," and 
he scarcely knew how he could get along with- 
out her. Mrs. James was so often ill that 
a great deal in the house and out of it fell 
upon Nellie. She was so bright and fear- 
less that nothing seemed too hard for her 
to attempt, and she could manage the light- 
house lamp nearly as well as her father. 
She had often lighted it, and it was a real 
pleasure to send the beautiful revolving 
light flashing over the water to warn and 
guide those who go down to the sea in 
ships. 

Nellie's most intimate friend at school, 
Mattie Blake, was her exact opposite, and 
people often wondered what drew them to- 
gether. Mattie was a delicate, timid girl, 
with two or three rough brothers who were 
fond of calling her "'fraid cat;" and she 
certainly was a great coward. Her mother 
said of her that she was frightened at her 
own shadow, and there were few things 
that she was not afraid of. She often cried 
over this in secret, and would have given 
anything to be brave like Nellie, but it 



SEA- LIONS. 153 

seemed as if she could not change herself. 
She was sweet-tempered and useless — 
" worse than no one," people declared, in 
an emergency. 

A visit at the lighthouse cottage was one 
of the greatest pleasures that Mattie had; 
she loved and admired her friend so en- 
thusiastically that it was delightful to be 
with her, and she often wished that courage 
were catching, like measles and scarlet 
fever. But it is always easier to get things 
that you don't want than those that you 
do. 

"There'll be considerable wind after a 
while," said Mr. James, who was going sev- 
eral miles away on important business for 
the lighthouse, "and I may be kept at 
Crook's Point till late in the evening. But 
I can trust the lamp With yoti, Nellie; light 
it in good season, my girl, for the clouds 
are settling themselves for a rou^h ni^ht." 

Nellie smilingly promised that the first 
star wouldn't have a chance to show its 
face before Bend Island Light put it out 
of countenance; and, tenderly kissing his 
wife, who was in bed with one of her bad 



154 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

neuralgic attacks, Mr. James gave a parting 
embrace to his girl and drove rapidly off. 

It happened very pleasantly that Mattie 
came in soon after, saying that she could 
stay all night if they wanted her ; and as 
there was never any doubt of this, she and 
Nellie and Mrs. James settled down for a 
cozy evening. 

"I'll make some short-cake for tea, 
mother, if you don't mind," said Nellie in 
her active, bustling way, "and you can have 
a beautiful brown piece of toast, if you'd 
rather. Mattie likes short-cake." 

Mrs. James smiled her consent; and 
Nellie began her preparations, in which 
Mattie helped, enjoying every minute of 
her visit, as she always did. She often 
wondered if any sitting-room was ever so 
pleasant as this one, which was sitting-room 
and kitchen combined, with the bedroom 
opening out of it. Some pink coloring 
had been put into the whitewash, which 
gave the walls a lovely glow in the firelight ; 
and the crimson lounge, neat white curtains 
and pretty carpet, pieced from a choice 
selection of rags by Nellie's busy fingers, 



SEA- LIONS. 155 

made a very attractive room of it. Things 
were different at the Blakes\ Mr. Blake 
kept a small store, and when he was away 
or very busy his wife had to wait upon cus- 
tomers, besides doing the work of her 
family ; and she said that she had no time 
for pretty things. 

Nellie had plenty to do, with her school 
and her sick mother and the lighthouse, 
but somehow she seemed to find time for 
everything. As she stood now in the fire- 
light with her flushed cheeks and bright 
brown hair, deftly turning over the nicely 
browned cake in the spider, Mattie de- 
clared to herself that she was "as pretty 
as a picture." 

Some fragrant tea was made and a slice 
of bread daintily toasted for Mrs. James; 
baked apples and gingerbread were added 
to the table, and tea was pronounced ready. 
After the small tray had been carried to 
the invalid's bedside, the two girls sat 
down to their meal in broad daylight and 
chatted over it a long time. Mrs. James 
seemed better, and joined in the talk ; 
Mattie declared that the short-cake was the 



156 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

nicest she had ever tasted. Mattie liked 
nice things and pleasant times, and she 
would take a great deal of trouble to avoid 
those that were not nice and pleasant. 

Outside, an October gale was coming up, 
as Mr. James had predicted, and at the 
approach of twilight Nellie quietly left her 
friend putting away the dishes, and, saying 
that she would be back soon, slipped away 
to the lighthouse. The lamp should be 
lighted earlier than usual to-night, for fear 
of its being forgotten until past the hour, 
and thus brinoingr the dear father into 
trouble and perhaps endangering the lives 
of others. 

Mattie finished the dishes, put the room 
in order and then sat down by Mrs. James 
to tell her about some matters in the village 
that interested her. The talk went on 
cheerfully and the twilight deepened, but 
Nellie did not appear. Once or twice her 
mother wondered at her absence, as it 
never took so long to light the lamp ; but 
Mattie said that she would come soon, and 
tried to make the sick woman forget how 
the time was passing. She felt just a little 



SEA- LIONS. 157 

uneasy herself, for something told her that 
had she done as she would be done by, 
Nellie would not have gone alone to the 
tower. But then she reasoned that Nellie 
often went alone, and did not care to have 
her unless she enjoyed going ; which she 
never did, for she had a terror of the nar- 
row, winding staircase and the close tower 
with its glass sides. 

Suddenly Mrs. James gave a sort of 
shriek. 

" It is getting dark," she cried, " quite 
dark ; and look ! look, Mattie ! There is 
no light i7i the tower f 

A window at the foot of the bed permit- 
ted a view of the lighthouse, and Mattie saw 
that these words were only too true. What 
had become of Nellie ? And oh, terrible 
thought ! what would become of the vessels 
out at sea on that wild night ? And, by 
way of help in this terrible emergency, 
down sank Mattie by the bedside and 
began to cry. 

"Mattie Blake," said the invalid with 
unusual energy, "get up this instant and 
stop crying ! Take the lantern, and go 



158 WATER-ANIMALS. 

directly to the tower and light the lamp ; 
then see what has become of Nellie. ,, 

"Oh!" sobbed Mattie, with a white face 
of terror, " I cant go, Mrs. James ; I'm 
afraid! Suppose that Nellie is killed ?" 

" Don't dare to tell me such a thing!" 
cried the excited woman, " but go at once, 
if you don't wish to be a murderer and 
wreck all the vessels off the coast. Mark 
my words, Mattie : if you wait any longer, 
you will rue this night's work as long as 
you live. If only I could go myself!" she 
added, as she fell back with a groan. 

" I'll go," said the trembling girl, starting 
to her feet ; " I didn't mean to be wicked, 
but I'm so — so frightened !" 

" Don't think of that, child; remember 
that God is everywhere, and do your duty. 
May he bless and keep you, and bring me 
back my Nellie!" 

Whispering a hasty prayer and trembling 
in every limb, Mattie started with the lan- 
tern, and went shudderingly through the 
dark passage and up the twisted staircase, 
not daring to peer into the corners, and 
too much afraid of the sound of her own 



SEA- LIONS. 159 

voice to call Nellie. She remembered the 
story of a brave girl who cured herself of 
cowardice by going all over the house 
alone in the dark, and, calling to mind 
Mrs. James's words that u God is every- 
where/' she planted her feet more firmly 
and resolved to do her best. Once in the 
queer little room, she had the lamp lighted 
almost before she knew it, and she stood 
gazing at the dazzling light with almost as 
much awe as if the sun had suddenly risen 
before her. 

But where was Nellie ? 

Out again on the little balcony that en- 
circled the tower, she seemed to be im- 
pelled, in spite of the wind, to walk around 
it ; and there, on the farther side, lay a mo- 
tionless heap which she recognized at a 
glance as her friend. Was it Nellie dead, 
or only insensible? She fainted easily, but 
what was she doing there in a fainting fit? 
And why had she not lighted the lamp? 
Not far off, a dead sea-bird of immense 
size had evidently killed itself by dashing 
against the wall of the tower ; and, won- 
dering if it had first attacked Nellie, Mattie 



1 60 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

began to chafe her cold hands and try to 
rouse her back to life. 

Presently in the tower-room, where Mat- 
tie had managed to drag- her, the bewildered 
girl opened her eyes and put her hand to 
her head. 

"I believe it aches," said she, sitting up; 
" it came against me so hard that it knocked 
me down, and then, you know, I forgot 
everything. What would I have done with- 
out you, Mattie? It was so very brave and 
good of you to come [" 

" Brave and good !" This was a new 
idea to Mattie, and, remembering her un- 
willingness, she hung her head for very 
shame. 

"I was not brave and good," she replied 
with a hot face, " for I didn't want to come, 
I was so afraid. I thought you had been 
killed. But your mother said I must come 
if I didn't want to be a murderer, because 
of the lamp ; so of course I had to come. 
But I was frightened all the way." 

" It was all the more brave of you to 
come, then," said Nellie, affectionately ; 
"and I suppose I had been out in the cold 



SEA-LIOXS. l6l 

long enough. That great bird, you see, 
flew right in my face — frightened himself, I 
suppose — and down I went, like the silly 
thing I am. It was so early for the lamp 
that I walked around the balcony to see the 
waves tossing- and foaming in the wind, and 
that's the way it happened. But next time 
I'll light the lampyfri-/, if it's the middle of 
the day." 

Poor Mrs. James was now wondering 
what had become of both the girls ; the 
magnificent light was flashing in her eyes, 
so that was all right ; but where were Nellie 
and Mattie ? She had almost decided to 
wrap the blanket around her and hobble 
off after them when in they both came, and 
Nellie lay down beside her to tell her 
adventures. 

"I have a word for you, Mattie," said the 
sick woman as she kissed her good-night: 
11 you have quietly done a great work this 
evening in perhaps saving Nellie's life and 
the lives of many of whom you will never 
know ; you have, besides, made a woman 
of yourself." 
This " word " was very sweet to Mattie, 
11 



1 62 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

who felt as if she never could be a coward 
any more ; and, after all, it was not so hard 
to be brave. It was only to remember that 
God is everywhere, for this thought had 
helped her to do her duty. 

There were a great many exclamations 
over the story when Miss Harson had fin- 
ished, and the children pronounced both 
Nellie and Mattie to be "just lovely!'' 

" It was so nice of her," said Edith, " to 
go to that dreadful tower when she was 
afraid ; and how could that girl walk all 
through the house in the dark?" 

"Edie dear," was the affectionate reply, 
" we can all do a great many things which 
we thought we couldn't possibly do, by try- 
ing with a right motive ; and the' best motive 
of all is the love and fear of God." 



CHAPTER IX. 

A SEA-BEAR. 

" r I "HERE is one more sea-animal, ,, said 

X Miss Harson, "found among the 
seals and walruses and sea-lions, but it is 
less common and more valuable than any- 
other of them. This is the sea-otter, a queer- 
looking black quadruped, about three and 
a half feet long from the tip of its short 
tail to its nose. It is not at all related to 
the seal family, for instead of ' flippers ' it 
has regular fore and hind legs, like any 
other quadruped/ ' 

11 Isn't it a little black bear ?" asked Edith: 
" that's what the picture looks like/' 

"Why, so it does!'' added Clara; "its 
head is exactly like a bear's." 

Malcolm declared that the picture of an 
otter in the book they gave Sim Jute was 
not a bit like this one. 

163 



1 64 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

" No," replied their governess, " for that 
was an English otter, and quite a different 
animal. You are quite right about the 
resemblance to a bear, which has caused 
this otter to be called the sea-bear. The 
shape of its body is like that of the beaver, 
and the skin lies in loose folds, so that 
when it is taken hold of in lifting the otter 
out of the water, it draws up like the hide 
on the nape of a young puppy-dog. This 
skin is covered with the richest of all fine, 
deep fur, a jet black, with silver-tipped 
hairs scattered here and there. This fur is 
so valuable that it is used principally for 
trimming, as it is too heavy and expensive 
for making full garments." 

" Is it handsomer than sealskin ?" asked 
Malcolm slyly, for he knew that great sat- 
isfaction prevailed in regard to certain gar- 
ments of that popular fur. 

" I like the color of sealskin better," re- 
plied Miss Harson, "and it must be far 
more agreeable to wear than so heavy a 
fur; but I suppose that people generally 
would call the sea-otter fur handsomer, 
because it is more rare and expensive. 



A SEA-BEAR. 1 65 

Sealskin, however, is quite good enough 
for me." 

" And me," " And me," added Clara and 
Edith, the latter of whom " didn't believe 
that the sea-otter was pretty, a bit." 

11 It is not a pretty animal, dear," was the 
laughing reply, "but the fur, from all ac- 
counts, is really beautiful. As we have all the 
fur we need, however, for the present, this 
need not trouble us. The sea-otter is very 
shy, and particularly dislikes the neighbor- 
hood of a human being. Any unfamiliar 
odor, it seems, will send it off where there 
is no possible chance of getting at it, and 
it requires the most patient watching ever 
to catch one. A sea-otters skin is worth, 
when taken from the animal, from thirty 
to sixty dollars, which is more than double 
what a seal skin brings ; and to secure so 
valuable an animal the natives around 
Alaska will suffer the greatest hardships. 

"Sea-otters are found more plentifully 
around the Saanack islets and reefs, and 
here the native hunters gather from the 
west and north and fix their camp on the 
main island, venturing out to sea fifteen or 



1 66 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

twenty miles in every direction, with no 
greater protection against the rough waves 
than their little ' kyacks,' or * bidarkies,' 
which seem to be tossed about like so 
many corks. But they are perfectly water- 
tight, and the Eskimos plunge in them 
through mountains of water without getting 
at all wet. Indeed, they are scarcely so un- 
comfortable on the water as when they are 
waiting and watching for their prey on a 
barren rock in cold, wet weather, as they 
often do for a month at a time, with no fire, 
no beds, nothing but a little coarse food to 
keep them alive. " 

" Why can't they have a bonfire on the 
rock," asked Malcolm, "and dance around 
it to get warm ?" 

" You forget,'' said his governess, " how 
very scarce fuel is with the Aleutians : I 
doubt if they know what a bonfire is. Be- 
sides, the blaze and the jumping figures 
would drive any respectable otter to the 
depths of the ocean, and thus cut off all 
hope of carrying away his precious skin. 
Care is taken never to leave any signs of 
food on the beaches, for one of these 



A SEA-BEAR. 1 67 

cautious animals on seeing it would be 
sure to say, 'Here s something wrong — I'll 
00 and warn the rest of 'em ;' and never 
an otter would show his pointed nose for 
many a day. 

" A traveler among these people says : 
11 ' The natives, when they go to Saanack 
on a hunting-trip of this character, usually 
make up a party of from forty to fifty men. 
They travel in their light skin bidarkies, 
two men in each, and are gone from three 
to four months at a time before returning 
to their families. They haul their kyacks 
out from the water every night as they 
bivouac along the coast, and sleep in gales 
of wind which are always loaded with rain, 
sleet and fog, without the least covering, 
and almost invariably without a fire. Ah ! 
rude indeed is the country of the Aleut ; 
but he is as rugged, and the bleak, precip- 
itous islands stamped with his name are 
all the world to him. He wants no other, 
and he is happy where we would be su- 
premely miserable. They are certainly as 
hardy a set of hunters, patient and ener- 
getic, as can be found in the world.' ' 



1 68 WATER-ANIMALS. 

It was a great surprise to the children 
that people should really like to live among 
such hardships, and they wondered that 
these hard-working natives didn't emigrate, 
like many who are far better off. 

"They think it delightful," was the reply, 
"and would look upon our way of living as 
very tame in comparison. If we would be 
wretched there, they would be equally 
wretched here ; and a good yield of sea- 
otter leaves them nothing to be desired. 
They really enjoy the shrewd and skillful 
artifices by which alone they can capture 
the watchful and suspicious creature, and 
the pleasure of outwitting it is almost equal 
to the profit/' 

"Miss Harson," asked Edith with great 
interest, "are the baby otters pretty?" 

" I doubt their being particularly pretty, 
dear, but they are what you would call 
1 very cunning.' They are as wild, how- 
ever, as their parents, and although they 
have often been captured alive, all attempts 
to rear them have been utterly useless. No 
matter what dainties were offered them, the 
frantic little creatures always starved them- 



A SEA-BEAR. 1 69 

selves to death. It is said to be an inter- 
esting sight to see the sea-otter mother 
asleep in the water on her back, with 
her young one clasped between her tiny 
fore paws." 

"I don't see how she can go to sleep in 
the water without drowning,'' said Malcolm. 

"/' don't see,' either," said Miss Harson, 
" but it is stated as a fact on good authority, 
and therefore we must take it on trust, es- 
pecially as we are not likely to be so sit- 
uated that we can see it." 

"It must be very funny to live in the 
water," said Clara, "and I should think it 
would be nice, too ; for when we were at 
the seashore and went in bathing I never 
wanted to come out again." 

" If you had webbed feet and a furry 
skin," replied her governess with a smile, 
"you might have stayed in the water as 
long as you liked. But then, you see, I 
should have had no girl about your size to 
love ; and as for papa — " 

Things now became, as Malcolm said, 
"affecting," and Clara laughingly promised 
to stop wishing that she could be an otter, 



I 70 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

especially as Edith contributed the rather 
alarming idea that she might wear her own 
sisters fur and not know it. 

" There is another species of otter/' con- 
tinued Miss Harson, " found in the temper- 
ate regions of Europe and America, which 
does not look much like its Arctic cousin. 
It belongs to the weasel family, who are 
famous hunters and remarkably blood- 
thirsty and persevering. The otter is very 
much persecuted by man, and were it not 
so much at home in the water, where it is 
most secure, there would scarcely be an 
animal of the species left. 

" It has a very small head compared with 
the size of its body, which is about four and 
a half feet long, and when the mouth is 
open, as it so frequently is, it suggests very 
unpleasant ideas of sharp bites. It seems 
to have been formed especially for living in 
the water, as its body is long and much 
flattened ; the tail is also flattened under- 
neath, and from its length and shape is ad- 
mirably adapted as a rudder ; the feet are 
broad and webbed ; and the legs are so 
loosely jointed that they can be turned in 




OTTERS. 



172 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

any direction while the animal is swim- 
ming/' 

"I wish my legs would do that!" ex- 
claimed Malcolm involuntarily. " Wouldn't 
I have just the grandest kind of time swim- 
ming if my legs were loose-jointed ? But 
excuse me, Miss Harson ; I didn't mean 
to interrupt." 

"..I thought the otter's legs would be too 
much for you, Malcolm," was the amused 
reply ; " and it is not at all remarkable that, 
aided by these advantages, the movements 
of the otter while in the water are most 
graceful and easy, and appear to be ex- 
ecuted without the smallest effort. The 
animal slips into the water quite as noise- 
lessly as if it were oil, and emerges in the 
same easy manner, hardly leaving a. ripple 
on the surface. Not the least extraordi- 
nary part of its aquatic performance is the 
manner in which it turns a somersault 
below the surface of the water without ap- 
pearing to check its speed. ' I have more 
than once,' says a certain writer, ' seen an 
otter in pursuit of a fish pass under its 
prey, and then, by a quick stroke of its tail, 



A SEA-BEAR. 1 73 

turn completely over, seizing the fish in the 
course of the manoeuvre. In order to re- 
tain the slippery prey when it has caught 
it, the teeth of the otter are very long, 
sharp and pointed, even the back teeth 
being furnished with sharp points.' ' 

"A weasel's teeth are sharp too," said 
Clara: "I remember your reading that to 
us, Miss Harson." 

"The teeth of both animals are very 
sharp, and the otter seems to delight in 
killing and carrying off more fish than it 
can possibly eat, as it will often bite off 
only the flesh at the back of the neck. 
The remainder, however, is not wasted, for 
poor people who live near rivers where 
otters dwell profit by this cruelty, often 
finding on the banks fine fish that are well 
worth taking home. In one place in Scot- 
land the otters invariably left a fine salmon 
every morning lying on a particular spot, 
much to the gratification of those who 
found it, who did not object to eating the 
fish because the otters had bitten out a 
piece for themselves. — What does this re- 
mind you of, Edie?" asked her governess: 



174 WATER-ANIMALS. 

" I see that you are all ready to tell me 
something." 

" Isn't it like Elijah and the ravens?" 
asked the little girl. " Only — " 

"I know, dear," said Miss Harson as 
she stopped in some embarrassment ; " the 
ravens were especially sent by God to feed 
his holy prophet, while the leaving of the 
fish by the otters seems accidental ; then it 
can be taken by any one. But nothing is 
really accidental, for our heavenly Father 
orders all things ; and some, at least, of 
the poor people who got that fish doubt- 
less recognized and thanked the Giver." 

"What do people want to hunt otters 
for?" asked Malcolm; "are they good for 
anything?" 

" Yes, they have very thick soft fur, which 
is made into gloves and caps: in cold 
regions these articles are very much worn. 
The chase of an otter is very exciting, and 
affords a large amount of what hunters call 
* sport/ and dogs are specially trained for 
this purpose. They would not be apt to 
undertake it of their own accord, as the 
jaws of the otter are so powerful and its 



A SEA-BEAR. 1 75 

teeth so strong- that it has been seen to 
break the leg of a stout terrier at a single 
bite. Its own fur, too, is very thick, and in 
some measure defends it from the bites of 
its enemies. 

" But sometimes the otter itself is the 
hunter ; and not very long ago, a man in 
some Western State shot an otter and, sup- 
posing it to be dead, went close up to it. 
The animal sprung at him furiously, and 
the hunter ran for his life, with the otter 
after him. A low rail-fence offered a hope 
of safety, and the man went quickly over 
it, only to find that the otter had gone 
through it. Then the man sprung back 
again, but so did the otter. This game 
was kept up for some time until, completely 
exhausted, the hunter made several frantic 
leaps, and finding the animal just passing 
through the fence, he in desperation grasped 
it by the tail, and, catching its leg through 
another crack, it sank exhausted to the 
ground. The cries of the man for help, 
mingled with the enraged snarls and fig-ht- 
ing of the otter, were heard at a farm 
nearly a mile distant, and the hunter was 



1 76 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

soon relieved from his awkward situation ; 
but he was so exhausted and enfeebled by 
the fright that it was some time before he 
could walk sufficiently to get to the house." 

" I shouldn't think he d want to hunt any 
more otters," said Clara. 

" No," was the reply ; " they were proba- 
bly let. alone, so far as he was concerned; 
and it is far better to tame an otter than to 
shoot it." 

" But how can such savage things be 
tamed?" asked Malcolm. 

" It is not easy even to catch them, but a 
comical habit they have of sliding down 
banks and such places, evidently for pure 
amusement, is quite a help. There is a 
chance then of taking one in a trap. These 
animals have been tamed in England, and 
taught to catch fish for their masters." 

" Do they bite 'em first," asked Edith, 
" like those otters that left the salmon for 
poor people ?" 

" No, dear," replied Miss Harson ; " they 
are taught not to do that, but it is not an 
easy lesson for a fish-loving animal like the 
otter to learn. The Hindus have been in 



A SEA-BEAR. 1 77 

the habit of training them by beginning 
when the animals were very young, and 
the first step was to make the otter give up 
all idea of eating fish himself. Bread and 
milk were mixed with fish to make him eat 
such strange food ; then less fish was given ; 
and at length bread and milk alone. Hav- 
ing reached this step, the otter is then 
taught to fetch and carry like a dog ; and 
when it has attained a certain proficiency 
in that art, a leathern model of a fish is 
cast into the water and the otter is taught 
to bring it out. By degrees dead fish are 
used instead of the model, the otter being" 
always chastised if it attempts to eat or 
even tear them. At last it is permitted to 
go in after living fish, which by this time it 
has learned to carry in its mouth without 
hurting them." 

"I wish we had some otters here to prac- 
tice on/' said Malcolm: "I believe I could 
teach them to catch all the fish we should 
want to eat." 

" But where would you get the fish ?" 
asked Clara : " there are only little minnows 
and things in the pond, you know." 
12 



178 WATER-ANIMALS. 

Malcolm was obliged to laugh at himself 
for leaving out so important a part of the 
programme, and Miss Harson said that she 
would not tell papa just yet that he need 
not order any more fish. 

"Tame otters," continued the young lady, 
" have been known to show as much affec- 
tion for their masters as a dog, fawning 
upon them in the same way and going out 
to walk with them. One of these strange 
pets was very fond of gooseberries, and 
equally fond of playing with his master's 
feet, just as a young puppy would do. 
Another one would catch fish for its own 
living and then return to its owner. One 
day the animal was taken to the river by 
its master's son. It entered the water as 
usual, but when called it refused to obey 
the command and remained in the water. 
Some time afterward the owner of the 
animal, who had been away from home, 
returned, and upon hearing of the loss of 
his pet went to the river-bank and gave the 
accustomed call. To his great joy the otter 
responded to the call, and came crawling 
out of the water to his feet." 



A SEA-BEAR. 1 79 

" How glad he must have been !" said 
Edith; "but the otter wanted to stay in 
the water, didn't he, Miss Harson ?" 

" It certainly looks as though he did, and 
he seemed to come out only from affection 
for his master. This shows that the feeling 
must have been a very strong one. 

"Another otter was so very tame that 
when strange dogs appeared it would try 
to spring into its master's arms for safety. 
It was a splendid fisherman, catching eight 
or ten salmon a day. When it caught 
them, it always tried to break the fish be- 
tween the last fin and the tail, and if the 
fish were taken away, it instantly dived in 
search of more. It was equally expert in 
the sea, where it caught numbers of cod- 
fish. It would hunt in this manner until it 
was tired, when it refused to enter the 
water again. Its master would then feed 
it ; and after it had taken as much food as 
it wished, it was accustomed to go to sleep 
on the spot, and was generally carried 
home sleeping." 

It seemed very funny to carry an otter 
about like a pussy cat, and the children felt 



l8o WATER-ANIMALS. 

that a glimpse of this pet animal would 
have been a very high degree of happiness. 

" An otter that was taught to fish for its 
owners/' said Miss Harson, "did not do it 
very willingly ; but it was interesting to 
watch its performance. Jumping into the 
deep rivulet into which it was taken, it 
would rouse the fish with blows of its tail. 
When the fish thus disturbed kept close to 
the bank, the otter did not notice them ; but 
if one of them darted before its pursuer, it 
was instantly seized and brought to the sur- 
face of the water, probably to lessen the 
power of its struggles. The otter caught 
several fish in this manner and brought 
them to shore, but resigned its prey with 
great reluctance, uttering a kind of whining 
remonstrance. " 

"What a shame!'' said Clara, "when the 
poor thing had taken so much trouble." 

"It was mean" said Edith with great 
scorn, " to take the otter's fish away." 

"If the fish was really needed by the 
owners, dear," replied her governess, " and 
the otter had enough for its own food, it 
was not cruel, any more than it is to make 



A SEA-BEAR. l8l 

other animals work for us, although we 
know that they do not like it. And now 
an account of another otter, who wouldn't 
fish for her owner, must take the place of a 
regular story : 

'"When I first obtained the animal,' says 
the owner, ' there was no water sufficiently 
near to where I lived in which I could give 
her an occasional bath ; and being appre- 
hensive that, if entirely deprived of an ele- 
ment in which nature had designed her to 
pass so considerable a portion of her exist- 
ence, she would languish and die, I allowed 
her a tub as a substitute for her native 
river, and in this she plunged and swam 
with much apparent delight. It was in this 
manner that I became acquainted with the 
curious fact that the otter, when passing 
along beneath the surface of the water, 
does not usually accomplish its object by 
swimming, but by walking along the bottom, 
which it can do as securely and with as 
much rapidity as it can run on dry land. 

" ' After having had my otter about a 
year, I changed my residence to another 
quarter of the town, where a stream flowed 



1 82 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

past the rear of the house. The creature 
being by this time so tame as to be allowed 
perfect liberty, I took it down one evening 
to the river and permitted it to disport it- 
self for the first time since its capture in a 
deep and open stream. The animal was 
delighted with the new and refreshing en- 
joyment, and I found that a daily swim in 
the river greatly conduced to its health and 
happiness. 

"T would sometimes walk for nearly a 
mile along the bank, and the happy and 
frolicsome creature would accompany me 
by water, and that, too, so rapidly that I 
could not, even by very quick walking, 
keep pace with it. On some occasions it 
caught small fish, such as minnows, eels, 
and occasionally a trout of no inconsider- 
able size. When it was only a minnow or 
small eel which it caught, it would devour 
it in the water, putting its head for that 
purpose above the water ; when, however, 
it had made a trout its prey, it would often 
come to shore and devour it more at leisure. 

" * I strove very hard to train this otter to 
fish for me, as I had heard otters have been 



A SEA-BEAR. 1 83 

many times taught to do, but I never could 
succeed in this attempt, nor could I ever 
prevail upon the animal to give me up at 
any time the fish which she had taken. 
The moment I approached her to do so, as 
if suspecting my intention she would at 
once take to the water, and, crossing to the 
other side of the stream, devour her prey 
in safety. The difficulty in training I im- 
pute to the animal's want of an individual 
affection for me, for it was not affection, 
but her own pleasure, which induced her to 
follow me down the stream, and she would 
with equal willingness follow any other 
person who happened to release her from 
her box. 

" ' Although this otter failed to exhibit 
those affectionate traits of character which 
have displayed themselves in other indi- 
viduals of her tribe toward the human 
species, she was by no means of a cold or 
unsocial disposition toward some of my 
smaller domestic animals. With an Angora 
cat she soon formed a very close friendship, 
and when in the house was unhappy if not 
in the company of her friend. 



1 84 WATER-ANIMALS. 

"'I had one day an opportunity of wit- 
nessing a singular display of attachment 
evinced by this otter toward the cat. A 
little terrier dog attacked the latter as she 
lay by the fire, and, driving her thence, pur- 
sued her under the table, the cat spitting 
and setting up her back in defiance. At 
this instant the otter entered the apartment, 
and no sooner did she perceive what was 
going on than she flew with much fury and 
bitterness upon the dog, seized him by the 
face with her teeth, and would doubtless 
have inflicted a severe chastisement upon 
him had I not hastened to the rescue, and, 
separating the combatants, expelled the 
terrier from the room. 

" ' When permitted to wander in the gar- 
den this otter would search for grubs, 
worms and snails, which she would eat 
with much apparent relish, detaching the 
latter from their shells with surprising 
quickness and dexterity. She would like- 
wise mount upon the chairs at the window 
and catch and eat flies — a practice that I 
have not hitherto seen noticed by any 
naturalist/ " 



CHAPTER X. 

AT THE NORTH POLE. 

MISS HARSON," said Clara as she 
came in shivering from an expedi- 
tion just outside the front door to see the 
stars that were glittering like diamonds in 
the winter sky, " why do people say that 
'it's as cold as Greenland ' ?" 

"What people say it, Clara ?" 

"Well, Jane did this morning, and Kitty 
answered, 'That's so;' and Thomas said it 
was colder than Greenland." 

" Which shows that they have never 
visited the Arctic regions, " was the smiling" 
reply, " nor even read about them. I know 
that ' as cold as Greenland ' is a favorite 
expression with some people, but it is not 
a happy one, for it is never so cold here 
as it is in Greenland. Suppose that we 
take a trip there to-night and see for our- 
selves how it is ?" 

185 



1 86 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

Yes, indeed ! they would like it of all 
things ; and Malcolm stipulated that they 
should see a polar bear — -several polar 
bears, if possible. 

" That is the principal object of our 
journey," said his governess— " to make 
the acquaintance of this despot of the 
Arctic regions, as he is called. But there 
are many other strange things to be seen 
first, and it is by no means an easy matter 
to get to Greenland. You will see by the 
map how very far north we shall have to 
travel — much farther than to go from where 
we are to the most southern point of the 
continent. Up, and still up, from Canada, 
past all these bays and islands to Baffin's 
Bay and the Greenland Sea, where Hud- 
son's Bay seems quite far south in compar- 
ison. We shall see plenty of icebergs and 
seals and walruses ; and unless we dress 
ourselves properly for the trip we shall be 
half, if not quite, frozen." 

"Won't our sealskin things be warm 
enough?" asked Edith. 

" No, dear ; reindeer-skins lined with 
thick fur are better; and we must have 



1 88 WATER-ANIMALS, 

sealskin boots sewed with twine. These 
keep out cold and wet, and as they are 
soft and elastic, they are very pleasant for 
walking-. Pine-wood snow-shoes two or 
three feet long, capable of supporting the 
weight of a man on the most brittle snow, 
and enabling him to pass over it with the 
rapidity of a skater on ice, can be fastened 
to the soles of the sealskin boots. " 

The children were highly amused at the 
queer appearance they would make in this 
style of dress, and when^ Miss Harson 
added that their sealskin caps might an- 
swer for mild weather, but they would need 
" jumpers" for the colder season, there was 
a universal cry for information. 

" * Jumpers ' are merely fur hoods fas- 
tened to the outer garment," was the laugh- 
ing reply ; " but why they are called by so 
strange a name I cannot imagine. They 
are an excellent protection against the cold, 
especially for the back of the neck, where 
it is always felt so keenly. Besides the 
cold, however, we must remember, in get- 
ting ready for our Arctic expedition, that 
food is very scarce in that region. " 



AT THE NORTH POLE. 1 89 

"We can take lots of good things with 
us/' suggested Malcolm : " cooked turkeys 
and chickens, and cold ham and tongue 
and — and — mince-pies. " 

Miss Harson seemed so very much 
amused at this idea that Malcolm was 
afraid his proposition was not so good a 
one as he had supposed it would be when 
he offered it. 

"This is not exactly the sort of fare/' 
said the young lady, " that Arctic travelers 
indulge in. I suppose that anything would 
keep in such a frozen region, as everything 
is on ice, whether it is wanted there or not; 
but such an outfit would add very much to 
the expense of a most expensive journey. 
1 Pemmican ' — which is, I think, but am not 
quite sure, dried and pounded meat — dried 
potatoes, meat- biscuits, pickled cabbage and 
various dried fruits and vegetables, with 
salt beef and pork, hard crackers and flour, 
do not make up a very inviting bill of fare. 
Besides these we must have a regular med- 
icine-chest, to be prepared for the sickness 
that is sure to come in some form or other, 
as well as plenty of knives, needles and 



I90 WATER-ANIMALS. 

other small articles which are attractive to 
the natives. " 

"It's going to be delightful/' said Clara, 
enthusiastically, as Miss Harson consulted 
the map ; " I'm so glad we started." 

" I don't mind going in this way," said 
Edith, "but I wouldn't like to go really. 
Td rather see the polar bears in pictures." 

"That's a real girl" replied Malcolm, as 
though he had expected her to be anything 
else. "I wish we could go to Greenland 
and find out just how cold it is." 

"I will tell you presently," said his gov- 
erness, smiling, "and I think your ardor 
will then be very much cooled. First, 
about Greenland itself: it is generally sup- 
posed to be a collection of barren islands, 
although sometimes spoken of as a conti- 
nent; and Dr. Kane, the famous Arctic 
explorer, says that it is connected with 
America by a mighty crystal bridge. He 
says also that it is large enough for a con- 
tinent, as there are at least twelve hundred 
miles of it in length, and that through the 
centre of all this space runs a deep un- 
broken sea of ice. There are plenty of 



AT THE NORTH POLE. I9I 

fogs on the coast of Greenland, as there 
are on the coast of Alaska ; and through 
these fogs, perhaps, we see our first won- 
der in these regions, the midnight sun!' 

u Oh, Miss Harson !" was the amazed ex- 
clamation, "does the sun really and truly 
shine at midnight?" 

" Really and truly it does. In all those 
regions near the poles there is a long sum- 
mer day of two months ; and although, 
when it is midnight by the clock, the sun 
makes an attempt at setting, just before it 
reaches the horizon it begins to rise again. 
This is such a wonderful sight that journeys 
are made to the North Cape, at the farthest 
point of Norway, for the sake of seeing it. 
One traveler writes of it: 'It was after 
twelve at night when we came into port, 
and the peculiar light of the Arctic summer 
at this hour — which reminds one of the ef- 
fect of an eclipse, so unlike our orthodox 
twilight — bathed everything in gray but the 
northern background, an Alpine chain stand- 
ing out against a blazing crimson sky/ And 
again he says : ' On our road we were fa- 
vored with a gorgeous spectacle, which 



1 92 WA TER-AN1MALS. 

hardly any excitement of peril could have 
made us overlook. The midnight sun 
came out over the northern crest of the 
great berg, kindling variously-colored fires 
on every part of its surface, and making 
the ice around us one great resplendency 
of gem-work, blazing carbuncles, rubies 
and molten gold/ " 

This was very beautiful to hear about; 
but Clara presently wondered how people 
knew, in such places, when it was time to 
go to bed. 

" There is some trouble in this way," re- 
plied Miss Harson, " with those who are 
not accustomed to these far northern re- 
gions, as it is hard to believe that it is 
really night when apparently it is broad 
day. Animals that are brought from warmer 
places find it especially puzzling to know 
when to go to sleep ; and there is a curious 
story of an English rooster that seemed to 
be utterly bewildered because it never came 
night. He appeared to think it unnatural 
to sleep while the sun was shining, and 
staggered about until he fell down from 
exhaustion. After a while he got into reg- 



AT THE NORTH POLE. I93 

ular habits, but he was apparently so dis- 
gusted to wake up in broad daylight, in- 
stead of in the gray dawn to which he was 
accustomed, that he stopped crowing. Per- 
haps he thought he had overslept himself, 
and was ashamed to crow so late." 

The children thought a rooster that did 
not crow a melancholy affair, and they would 
have been glad to know how he acted when 
he got back — if he ever did get back — to 
his native place. 

" That is hardly probable, as live animals 
are often taken on long voyages on purpose 
to have them fresh when wanted for food, 
and the perplexed rooster was doubtless 
killed and eaten in the polar seas. But 
imagine birds tucking their heads under 
their wings and trying to sleep until the 
broad glare of sunshine made them give 
it up in despair. Pussy would not mind 
such a state of things, as she can sleep 
at all times and in all places, but it must 
be particularly inconvenient for foreign 
birds." 

"It would be nice, though," said Clara, 
who was something of an owl, " to get to a 
13 



1 94 WA TER- ANIMALS. 

place where you wouldn't have to go to 
bed just when you wanted to sit up." 

" If I should try keeping you out of bed 
for just one night," replied her governess, 
"I am very sure that you would beg to be 
allowed to sleep before morning. But 
people who live in these northern countries 
do not, as you seem to suppose, stay awake 
for two months. They go to bed just as 
we do, without paying any attention to the 
movements of the sun, for it is impossible 
to live without sleep. When the two 
months of daylight are passed, then come 
the days of twilight and darkness, a hun- 
dred and forty of them altogether. — How 
many months, Malcolm ?" 

" Four months and a half," was Mal- 
colm's reply. 

" Fully that ; and it is very hard for us 
to realize this dismal season. Early in 
November the twilight deepens into night ; 
and an Arctic traveler writes at that time : 
' We still read the thermometer at noonday 
without a light, and the black masses of the 
hills are plain for about five hours with 
their glaring patches of snow, but all the 



AT THE NORTH POLE. 1 95 

rest is darkness. Lanterns are always on 
the spar-deck, and the lard-lamps never 
extinguished below. The stars of the 
sixth magnitude shine out at noonday/ 
Entire darkness prevails for ninety days, 
and the Eskimo is said to measure his life 
by winters as the American Indian does by 
summers, because winter is the longest 
part of the year. He calls it 'the season 
of fast ice.' 

11 But when the day has come again, and 
the first thawing begins to show itself in 
the sunshine as winter declines before the 
promise of spring, he tells you that it is 
J upernasak,' the time of water-drops. It 
is then that the snow-bird comes back and 
the white ptarmigan takes on a few brown 
feathers. His well-known heath too, the 
'irsuteet/ is green again below its dried 
stems in the snow. 

11 About the end of May, or a little later, 
comes ' upernak/ the season of thaws. It 
is the Eskimo's true summer. Animal and 
vegetable life is now back again, the floes 
break upon the sea and drift in ice-rafts 
about the coasts, snow is disappearing from 



1 96 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

the hill-tops and the torrents pour down 
from the long-sealed ravines and valleys. 

" By the middle of August comes the 
season of ' aosak,' or no ice, which lasts a 
very short time. ' No ice ' means only that 
the sea is more open than at any other 
season, but there is always ice to be seen 
around this open passage. The latter part 
of September is the end of this short 
summer. There is still a fifth season, when 
the water-torrents begin to freeze in the 
fiords and thawing ceases except at noon- 
day. This terminates when the young ice 
has formed in a permanent layer on the 
bays, and winter returns with its long reign 
of cold and darkness.' " 

" Well," said Malcolm, " they may keep 
their midnight sun and welcome if that's 
the way all the rest of the year is there." 

"Isn't it aw — , I mean very cold, Miss 
Harson ?" asked Edith with an expectant 
shiver. 

" Yes, dear," was the reply : " that cannot 
be denied ; and the old writers used to say 
about these regions that when the inhab- 
itants tried to speak the words froze in 



AT THE NORTH POLE. 1 97 

coming out of their mouths, and did not 
thaw until spring." 

"That couldn't be true, could it?" said 
Clara, quite seriously. But she was soon 
laughing as heartily as the others at the 
absurdity of her question. 

"An Arctic winter," continued Miss Har- 
son, " contains a greater amount of cold 
than we can possibly realize. We call it 
Arctic weather when our thermometer is 
down to zero ; but what should we think of 
fifty below? Of weather that freezes meat 
hard, and makes of a sleeper's long beard 
a mass of ice frozen fast to the buffalo- 
skin, not much that is favorable can be 
said; and the only wonder is that any 
Arctic explorers come back alive to tell the 
tale. With cold and darkness together, 
such a winter must be very dreadful to 
those who have lived in a temperate region, 
as it seems hard enough even for the 
natives." 

" Do they mind the cold ?" asked Mal- 
colm. 

" Not as we should, because they were 
born in this inhospitable region, and their 



I98 WA TER-ANIMA LS. 

dress and food are a great protection 
against the cold. First they wear an un- 
dershirt made of bird-skins which have 
been chewed until they are quite soft, and 
some of these garments contain as many 
as five hundred skins of the 'auk' as one 
species of bird is called. Next comes the 
1 kapetah/ a shirt which fits very loosely ; 
and fast to this is a close hood, called the 
* nessak.' After the bearskin breeches 
there is a short sock of birdskin, with a 
grass-padded sole ; and outside of this 
comes a bearskin leg, sewed with great 
skill to the natural sole of the bear, and 
abundantly wadded about the foot with 
dry, non-conducting straw." 

" No wonder they are such funny-looking 
objects !" said Clara as Miss Harson turned 
to a picture of some Eskimos in " full dress." 
"I should think they could hardly waddle 
about with all that on." 

"They can't feel very cold," said Edith. 

" Besides all this," added their governess, 
"a fox's tail is held between the teeth to 
protect the nose in a wind, and mitts of 
sealskin well wadded with straw adorn the 



AT THE NORTH POLE. 



199 



hands. How a person so attired can move 
or use his limbs in any way seems a mys- 
tery ; and he is described as 'a lump of 




HEAVILY CLAD. 



deformity waddling over the ice, unpictur- 
esque, uncouth and seemingly helpless.' ' 

"The women seem to be dressed just 
like the men!" said Clara in surprise. 
" How very queer that is !" 

"It seems so to us," was the reply; "but 
their idea of dress is to keep warm, and 
they could scarcely do this in their severe 
climate with any other style of clothing. 
It does not look so queer when one gets 



200 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

accustomed to it, and on a young native 
girl this costume is almost pretty. I am 
afraid," added the young lady, "that you 
would not like the Eskimo houses any 
better than the dress. " 

"That's only a hut," said Malcolm as 
Miss Harson placed a picture before them. 
" Is it the best they've got in the way of a 
house?" 

"It is a fair representation of a native 
Arctic residence," replied his governess, 
"and it certainly does not look alluring to 
those who are accustomed to our handsome 
and comfortable houses. The hut is built, 
you see, of large stones in the shape of a 
dome, with a little outer one at the entrance, 
from which you go down into the house, in- 
stead of up. The stones are sodded with 
turf, and the door is a narrow slab of clay- 
slate. Inside of this ' igloe,' as it is called, 
things are by no means pleasant. In de- 
scribing one our explorer says: * At its far- 
ther end a rude platform, also of stone, 
was lifted about a foot above the enter- 
ing floor. The roof formed something of 
a curve : it was composed of flat stones, re- 



AT THE NORTH POLE. 



201 



markably large and heavy, arranged so as 
to overlap each other. The height of this 
cave-like abode barely permitted one to sit 
upright. Its length was eight feet, its 




ESKIMO HOUSE. 



breadth seven feet, and an expansion of 
the tunneled entrance made an appendage 
of perhaps two feet more/ 

"You will understand better," continued 
the young lady, "how very small this house 
is when I tell you that there is not a room 
at Elmridge which is not larger." 



202 WATER-ANIMALS. 

"Not even our dolls' room?" asked 
Edith in amazement 

" Not even your dolls' room, for that is 
ten feet square. The entrance to this tiny 
house, a long, narrow passage-way, is called 
a 'tossut.' The stone platform inside is 
the nearest approach to a bed that these 
people have, but it also answers the pur- 
pose of sofa and chairs. The temperature 
in one of these habitations is something 
dreadful — not from cold, but from heat — 
and the inmates sit or lie about with 
scarcely any clothes on, and sometimes 
with none at all. Dirt abounds in such 
crowded quarters, and also smoke, as wal- 
rus-blubber is the favorite article of fuel, 
being burned on the stone platform, while 
the 'kotluk/ or general cooking- vessel, is 
suspended over it." 

"Don't the Eskimos eat raw meat?" 
asked Malcolm ; " I didn't suppose they 
ever cooked anything." 

"Theyafo eat it raw, with great relish," 
was the reply, "but they also eat it cooked. 
Little children will eat long strips of raw 
blubber as other children eat candy, and 



AT THE NOR Til POLE. 203 

this habit gives the little ones a very fat 
and greasy appearance. Arctic travelers 
always find the Eskimos very hospitable, 
and a stranger is taken into the hut at once 
as one of the family ; they are also kind 
and polite to each other, and one of their 
curious customs is to cry together. Every- 
thing seems to be done in concert. They 
often assemble by concert for a general 
weeping-match ; but it happens sometimes 
that one will break out into tears, and 
others courteously follow, without knowing 
at first what is the particular subject of 
grief." 

"How very funny!" exclaimed the chil- 
dren. 

"And just think," added Edith: "if we 
were Eskimos, you'd all have to cry when- 
ever I did !" 

" Come here," said her governess laugh- 
ingly, " and let me whisper something in 
your ear. Don't you think that a great 
while ago, when you were a very little girl, 
we should have been kept rather busy with 
our pocket-handkerchiefs ?" 

"Yes, Miss Harson," was the brave re- 



204 WATER-ANIMALS. 

ply, with very red cheeks; "I used to cry 
very easily. But don't you think I've im- 
proved a little ?" 

" No, dear," with a loving kiss, "I don't 
think you have improved a little, but a very 
great deal ; and I should almost expect you 
to meet a polar bear now without crying." 

"I wish one would hurry along," said 
Malcolm ; " I'm ready for him." 

" Much more ready, I think," replied Miss 
Harson, " than you would be if there was 
any danger of his appearing." 

The young gentleman could not deny 
this ; and he promised, with a great show 
of penitence, to be patient and learn what 
he could in the mean time. 

"Are the Eskimos heathens?" asked 
Clara. 

"Some of them still are; but Lutheran 
and Moravian missionaries from Denmark 
have taught them of the Saviour, and they 
can no longer be called savages. Before 
these devoted men went to them with the 
word of God in their hands the natives of 
Greenland committed the worst crimes 
without any feeling of shame, and it was 




ESKIMO VILLAGE. 



206 WATER-ANIMALS. 

not considered safe for a vessel to touch 
upon their coast. Nearly a hundred and 
fifty years ago a Dutch brig was seized by 
the natives and the whole crew murdered; 
but now such a thing would not happen in 
the whole length and breadth of the land. 

" For the last hundred years Greenland 
has been safer for the wrecked mariner 
than many parts of our own coast. Hos- 
pitality is the universal characteristic, en- 
joined upon the converted as a Christian 
duty, but everywhere a virtue of savage 
life. From Upernavik to Cape Farewell 
the Eskimo does not hesitate to devote his 
own meal to the necessities of a guest. 
The benefits of the missionary school are 
not confined to the Christianized natives ; 
and it is observable that the virtues of 
truth, self-reliance and generous bearing 
have been inculcated successfully with men 
who still cherish the wild traditionary super- 
stitions of their fathers. Some of these are 
persons of strongly-marked character, and 
are trusted largely by the Danish officials." 

" I should think, then," said Malcolm, 
" that people who go to Greenland would 



AT THE NORTH POLE. 207 

give a great deal of money to the mission- 
ary society, because if it hadn't been for 
their changing the people so they couldn't 
go at all." 

"The trouble is, Malcolm," replied his 
governess, " that those who profit by such 
self-denying labors seldom think of them, 
but take what they find as a matter of 
course ; and I am afraid that very few voy- 
agers to Greenland have remembered the 
missionaries. " 



CHAPTER XL 

COLD COMFORT. 

"T T 7ELL," said Sim Jute as he rather 

V V scornfully eyed a small, dome-like 
structure on the edge of the pond, " if 
that's an Eskermow house, I don't want to 
set in it, and I guess folks'll like their 
coffee and things better out of the old 
shanty. They can't git into this thing!" 

"Yes, they can," replied Malcolm eager- 
ly; "you just go through the ' tossut/ this 
way." 

And down went the young gentleman on 
his hands and knees to show how easy it 
was to crawl through the narrow aperture ; 
but at the beginning of his efforts he was 
greeted with a loud laugh from his com- 
panion that made him pause in a state of 
silent wrath. 

Sim stopped laughing as soon as he 
could, and said in a gentler voice, 

208 



COLD COMFORT. 2CKJ 

"You've been awful good to me, Mister 
Malcolm, and I ain't forgot any of it. You 
know a heap more than I do, and you've 
been interjuced to them Eskermows and 
other queer folks that I don't know nothin' 
about ; but I don't s'pose they ever tried 
keepin' a coffee-stand on the ice. Any- 
way, they never tried it here, where folks 
don't crawl into houses like that; and no- 
body but boys'd try to do it." 

Malcolm was disappointed ; he had 
worked hard, ably helped by Sim, to get 
his " igloe " properly built, being fully per- 
suaded that it would be a very taking idea 
to dispense coffee and other refreshments 
for skaters from a real Eskimo hut. And 
now here was Sim, for whose benefit it was 
chiefly intended, declaring that it wouldn't 
do at all ! The architect had not happened 
to think that people might object to the 
unusual mode of entrance, and he had 
only told Sim that he wanted his help in 
building and that he was going to surprise 
him when it was finished. 

Sim was quite as much surprised as 
could have been desired, but not in the 
14 



2 1 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

way that Malcolm wanted. He had helped 
make snow-shoes, however, and had then 
obligingly tumbled down in them, in com- 
pany with his teacher, in vain efforts to 
" glide over the snow at a rapid rate ;" he 
had stuffed straw into his shoes to keep his 
feet warm (also under Malcolm's instruc- 
tion), and privately taken it out again when 
he couldn't stand it another minute ; and 
he had half swallowed something in the 
shape of a fox's tail to keep the wind from 
freezing his nose on extra-cold days. All 
these experiments had been meekly borne, 
but when it came to occupying an Eskimo 
hut, Sim politely rebelled. 

"There is one thing," said Miss Harson, 
who had come up behind the boys without 
their knowing it, " which you have certainly 
forgotten, Malcolm ; and that is, that Eski- 
mo huts are intended for Eskimos." 

" But isn't it nice?" said Clara and Edith, 
who were sure not to be very far off from 
their beloved governess: "it's made just 
like the pictures. — How could you do it, 
Malcolm?" 

"I couldn't if Sim hadn't helped me," 



COLD COMFORT. 211 

was the generous reply. — " Do you like it, 
Miss Harson ?" 

11 Very much indeed ; it looks like an ex- 
cellent imitation of their queer structures. 
If I were only two or three feet high, I 
should certainly explore the inside. It is 
quite an ornament to the pond, and I should 
not be surprised if numbers of people 
came to look at it." 

Malcolm felt quite comforted by this 
time, and forgave Sim for disappointing 
him. The " igloe " was very much admired, 
and it brought more custom than ever to 
the young restaurant-keeper, who quite 
deserved it as a highly respectable and 
useful member of society. So that the 
labor was not thrown away, after all ; and 
Miss Harson said that it had also been a 
great advantage to Malcolm to build it. 

11 It will scarcely do," said the young lady, 
smiling, " to illustrate all our Arctic explor- 
ations in that fashion ; but there is one 
thing we shall encounter which there is 
no danger of your imitating. I mean the 
magnificent illumination known as the au- 
rora bore alts or northern light!' 



212 WATER-ANIMALS. 

" Why, we had that here, Miss Harson," 
said Clara. " Don't you remember show- 
ing it to us ever so long ago?" 

u Yes, dear, I remember it perfectly ; and 
a very grand sight it was. But it is only 
occasionally with us, and does not compare 
with the fireworks which adorn the sky of 
Greenland and other northern regions. 
An ancient traveler, the first perhaps on 
the Arctic shores, describes it in this 
fashion : 

" ' There arises in Greenland a light with 
the night, when the moon is new or on the 
point of becoming so, which lights up all 
the country as if the moon were full ; and 
the darker the night the brighter the light 
shines. It takes its course on the north 
coast, on account of which it is called the 
northern light. It looks like flying fire, and 
stretches up into the sky like a high and 
long palisade. It passes from one place to 
another, and leaves smoke in the places it 
leaves. None but those who have seen it 
could give any idea of the quickness and 
agility of its movements ; it lasts all night 
and disappears at sunrise/ " 



COLD COMFORT. 21 3 

" A later writer describes ■ the rays darted 
by the luminous meteor as of all the colors 
of the rainbow, red predominating. Here 
and there the stars seemed to be floating 
in blood. Glowing lines of throbbing color 
spread from the dark segment on the hori- 
zon, some of them passing the zenith and 
quenching the light of the moon in their 
electric waves, which oscillated and trembled 
as if swept by a current of air. No de- 
scription could give an adequate idea of 
the glory which flushed the northern sky, 
converting it into a vast dome of fire ; but 
after the magnificent spectacle had been 
enjoyed for about half an hour it suddenly 
disappeared, not fading gradually away 
after a concentration of its rays or a dimi- 
nution of its splendor, but dying abruptly, 
as if an invisible hand had cut off the 
supply of electricity which gave it life/ ' 

"The other one said it lasted all night," 
said Malcolm. "I wonder which is right ?" 

"Both, I suspect/' replied his governess, 
" as the illumination would vary according 
to the condition of the atmosphere, just as 
lightning does. But the contrast of all this 



214 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

splendor with the white ground and stately 
ice-mountains, which are all that can be 
seen as far as the eye may reach, must be 
very fine, and it shows that there are some 
things in Greenland almost worth going to 
see." 

" Does anything ever grow there, Miss 
Harson ?" asked Clara. 

" Oh yes/' was the reply : " there is a great 
deal of moss and heath, and there are even 
some wild flowers. Our favorite explorer, 
Dr. Kane, speaks of finding these flowers 
early in June, and of finding plants green 
under the dried tufts of last year; but 'in- 
stead of the graceful growth which should 
characterize them, they showed only a low 
scrubby sod or turf, yet studded with 
flowers/ " 

11 But flowers get killed in the cold here/' 
said Edith: "why don't they there ?" 

" Because " — to the children's great sur- 
prise — " they are protected by the snow. 
It is the sharp winds that kill ; and Dr. 
Kane says that \ few of us at home can 
realize the protecting value of this warm 
coverlet of snow. No eiderdown in the 



COLD COMFORT. 2l5 

cradle of an infant is tucked in more kindly 
than is the sleeping-dress of winter about 
this feeble flower-life. The first warm snows 
of August and September, falling on the 
thickly-pleached carpet of grasses, heaths 
and willows, enshrine the flowery growths 
which nestle round them in a non-conduct- 
ing air-chamber ; and as each successive 
snow increases the thickness of the cover, 
we have, before the intense cold of winter 
sets in, a light cellular bed covered by a 
drift six, eight or ten feet deep, in which 
the plant retains its vitality/ 

" A peculiar kind of moss which is found 
on the coast, or rather near it, gives such a 
deep rose-hue through the snow that the 
region where it grows is known as the 
1 Crimson Cliffs/ Old travelers supposed 
that the color was in the snow itself, but 
later discoveries brought to light these tiny 
moss-cups." 

" How lovely crimson moss must be !" 
exclaimed Clara, who had a fondness for 
bright colors ; M I have never seen any." 

" You forget the sea-moss, I think," said 
Miss Harson, " which you thought so very 



2 1 6 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

pretty when we gathered it, and which is 
both crimson and rose-color. The Green- 
land moss is, of course, different, and I am 
sorry that I cannot contrive a way for you 
to see Jt." 

" Fd much rather see an iceberg," said 
Malcolm. 

"Icebergs are best in pictures," was the 
laughing reply, " and it is not easy to see a 
real one without seeing more than is at all 
desirable. These huge moving mountains 
of ice are the terror of the Arctic voyager, 
and during an 'ice-fog/ which is often en- 
countered at the entrance of Melville Bay — 
which you will please find, Malcolm, on the 
map — there is great danger of being wedged 
in by them. One volume speaks of them 
as though they were living creatures when 
it says : ' The bergs which infest this region, 
and which have earned for it among the 
whalers the title of the " Bergy Hole," 
showed themselves all around us: we had 
come in among them in the fog/ " 

" Did they get out again, Miss Harson ?" 
with great anxiety. 

" Yes, after working hard all day ; but it 



2l8 WATER-ANIMALS. 

was a fortunate escape. At another time, 
strange as it sounds, the ship was fastened 
to an iceberg for safety ; and this was 
accomplished with great labor by planting 
ice-anchors. But all this trouble was for 
nothing, as the account says, 'We had 
hardly a breathing-spell before we were 
startled by a set of loud crackling sounds 
above us, and small fragments of ice, not 
larger than a walnut, began to dot the 
water like the first drops of a summer 
shower. The indications were too plain ; 
we had barely time to cast off before the 
face of the berg fell in ruins, crashing like 
near artillery.' 

"The most dangerous part of an iceberg 
is its great bulk under the water, so that 
it is impossible to tell its full size. Think, 
too, of such a sheet of water as Melville 
Bay being turned into a thick field of ice 
when the Arctic winter has fairly set in ! 
The interior of the country bounded by 
Baffin's Bay is, it seems, the seat of exten- 
sive glaciers, which are constantly shedding 
off icebergs of the largest dimensions." 

" I'm glad we don't live there," said 



COLD COMFORT. 2\g 

Edith ; " and / don't want to see an ice- 
berg." 

"I'd like to see one," replied her sister, 
"if I could be sure that it wouldn't do us 
any harm/' 

" Perhaps there'll be one exhibited in a 
cage, so that it can't get out," suggested 
Malcolm : " then we can all go and look 
at it." 

This idea was received with a burst of 
merry laughter, and their governess said, 

"You thought it a very odd idea to 
fasten a ship to an iceberg for safety, but 
what do you think of such a shelter for 
travelers from an Arctic storm ?" 

It seemed impossible to think of it at all. 
What good could an iceberg do ? 

"You will see," was the reply. "There 
is an account of a party traveling in sledges 
who were overtaken by a fearful snow- 
storm while they were in a narrow gorge 
between huge icebergs, over which the 
storm raged with great fury. Pieces of 
ice, broken off by the hurricane, were 
hurled into the pass ; partial avalanches, 
any one of which could have crushed the 



220 WATER-ANIMALS. 

sledges and their inmates, added to its 
dangers, and to press on became impossible. 
It was now necessary to find a shelter from 
the snow-drift; but this was no difficult 
matter to men accustomed to polar expedi- 
tions. 'To the icebergs! to the icebergs!' 
was the cry. 

" Snow-houses were to be hollowed out 
of the frozen masses, or, rather, holes were 
to be dug in which each person could 
cower until the storm was over. Knives 
and hatchets were soon at work on the 
brittle masses of ice, and dens were scraped 
out large enough to contain two or three 
persons each. The dogs were left to them- 
selves, their own instinct leading them to 
find sufficient shelter under the snow. 

" In these very strange quarters the trav- 
elers remained for forty-eight hours, being 
obliged to shovel away the snow from the 
openings to their holes every half hour. 
Being provided with food, they were neither 
cold nor hungry, and, secure in their retreat, 
they could hear the wind roar in the narrow 
pass and tear off the tops of the icebergs. 
There were loud reports made by the fall 



COLD COMFORT. 221 

of avalanches, and other noises proclaimed 
the presence of bears amid the general 
confusion." 

" Did the bears find the people in the ice- 
bergs ?" asked Malcolm in great excite- 
ment ; "and what did these do then?" 

" No, they did not care to find them, for 
these terrible animals were too much occu- 
pied with their own concerns to discover 
the retreat of the travelers ; neither the 
do^s nor the sledges buried in the snow 
attracted their attention, and they passed 
on without doing any harm." 

This was a wonderful story, and the chil- 
dren were deeply interested. Malcolm, 
however, seemed rather disappointed by 
the peaceable conduct of the first bears 
that had appeared upon the scene. 

" Miss Harson," said Clara presently, 
" were the dogs the same Eskimo dogs of 
which you told us when we were learning 
about Home Animals? 1 ' 

"The very same, I fancy, for Arctic ex- 
plorers are obliged to travel in Eskimo 
style. Sometimes they bring a fine team 
of Newfoundland dogs with them, but these 



222 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

magnificent animals do not seem hardy 
enough to bear the rigors of the climate, 
and they soon have to be replaced by the 
less lovable animals used by the Eskimos. 



TRAVELING IN ESKIMO STYLE. 



These are said to eat everything they can 
lay their paws on or get their teeth into, 
even attempting a feather bed ; and one 
of them, to the disgust of its scientific 



COLD COMFORT. 223 

master, devoured two large birds' nests 
carefully gathered for specimens : ■ feathers, 
filth, pebbles and moss — a peckful at the 
least/ " 

"Oh!" said Edith, "how horrid !" 

Clara was equally shocked, and Malcolm 
quite enjoyed their disgust. 

"There is an amusing account of one of 
these dogs/' continued the young lady, 
" who was known as ' Old Grim/ and who 
gave considerable trouble to a party of 
explorers. ' Old Grim/ says the writer, ' is 
missing, and has been for more than a day. 
Since the lamented demise of Cerberus, 
my leading Newfoundlander, he has been 
patriarch of our scanty kennel. 

"' Old Grim was "a character" such as 
peradventure may at some time be found 
among beings of a higher order and under 
a more temperate sky. A profound hypo- 
crite and time-server, he so wriggled his 
adulatory tail as to secure every one's 
good graces and nobody's respect. All 
the spare morsels, the cast-off delicacies, 
of the mess passed through the winnowing 
jaws of Old Grim. He was never known 



2 24 WA TER- ANIMALS. 

to refuse anything offered or approachable, 
and never known to be satisfied, however 
prolonged and abundant the bounty or the 
spoil. 

" ' Grim was an ancient dog : his teeth 
indicated many winters, and his limbs, once 
splendid tractors for the sledge, were now 
covered with warts and ringbones. Some- 
how or other, when the dogs were harness- 
ing for a journey Old Grim was sure not to 
be found; and upon one occasion, when he 
was detected hiding away in a cast-off bar- 
rel, he incontinently became lame. Strange 
to say, he has been lame ever since, except 
when the team is away without him. 

" ' Cold disagrees with Grim ; but by a 
system of careful watchings at the door of 
our deck-house, accompanied by a discrim- 
inating use of his tail, he became at last the 
one privileged intruder. My sealskin coat 
has been his favorite bed for weeks to- 
gether. Whatever love for an individual 
Grim expressed by his tail, he could never 
be induced to follow him on the ice after 
the cold darkness of the winter set in ; yet 
the dear good old sinner would wriggle 



COLD COMFORT. 225 

after you to the very threshold of the gang- 
way, and bid you good-bye with a depreca- 
tory wag of the tail which disarmed all 
resentment. 

" ' His appearance was quite characteris- 
tic : his muzzle roofed like the old-fashioned 
o-able of a Dutch o-arret-window ; his fore- 
head indicating the most meagre capacity 
of brains that could consist with his sanity 
as a dog; his eyes small; his mouth cur- 
tained by long black dewlaps ; and his hide 
a mangy russet, studded with chestnut- 
burrs; if he has gone indeed, we ne'er 
shall look upon his like again. So much 
for Old Grim. 

" ' When yesterday's party started to take 
soundings, I thought the exercise would 
benefit Grim, whose time-serving sojourn 
on our warm deck had be^un to render 
him over-corpulent. A rope was fastened 
round him — for at such critical periods he 
was obstinate and even ferocious — and thus 
fastened to the sledge he commenced his 
reluctant journey. Reaching a stopping- 
place after a while, he jerked upon his line, 
parted it a foot or two from its knot, and, 

15 



226 WATER-ANIMALS. . 

dragging the remnant behind him, started 
off through the darkness in the direction 
of our brig. He has not been seen since. 

" ' Parties are out with lanterns seeking 
him, for it is feared that his long cord may 
have caught upon some of the rude pinna- 
cles of ice which stud our floe and thus 
made him a helpless prisoner. The ther- 
mometer is at 44 C. below zero, and Old 
Grim's teeth could not gnaw away the cord. 

" ' We tracked Old Grim to-day through 
the snow to within six hundred yards of 
the brig, and thence to that mass of snow- 
packed sterility which we call the shore. 
His not rejoining the ship is a mystery 
quite in keeping with his character/ v 

"Perhaps a bear ate him up," said Edith. 

Miss Harson admitted that this might be 
very possible ; and Grim was generally de- 
nounced as a very silly dog for wandering 
away from warmth and safety to meet such 
a wretched end. 

" Newfoundland dogs are ever so much 
nicer," said Clara ; " and that obstinate ' Old 
Grim ' was just served right." 

" Newfoundlanders are nicer in many 



COLD COMFORT. 227 

ways," was the reply, " for, besides being- 
voracious eaters, the Eskimo dogs still have 
so much of the wild-beast nature about them 
that they can scarcely be restrained from run- 
ning away on the first opportunity. ' Two 
of our largest/ says the biographer of ' Old 
Grim/ ' left themselves behind at Fog Inlet, 
and we had to send a boat-party to-day to 
their rescue. It cost a pull of about eight 
miles through ice and water before they 
found the recreants, fat and saucy, beside 
the carcass of the dead narwhal. After 
more than an hour spent in attempts to 
catch them, one was tied and brought on 
board, but the other suicidal scamp had to 
be left to his fate/ " 

" How many dogs do they have to travel 
with ?" asked Malcolm. 

"That depends, Malcolm, upon the num- 
ber of the travelers and the quantity of 
baggage they carry, as a certain amount is 
partitioned to each dog. Dr. Kane and 
his party started with ten Newfoundland 
dogs, and on reaching Greenland they pur- 
chased thirty or forty Eskimo dogs from the 
natives. It was almost an impossibility to 



228 WATER-ANIMALS. 

get enough for these creatures to eat ; and 
the following account of them is not very 
flattering : 

"'It may be noted among our little 
miseries/ says the great explorer, * that we 
have more than fifty dogs on board, the 
majority of whom might rather be charac- 
terized as " ravening wolves." To feed 
this family, upon whose strength our prog- 
ress and success depend, is really a difficult 
matter. The absence of shore- or land-ice 
to the south in Baffin's Bay has prevented 
our rifles from contributing any material 
aid to our commissariat. Our two bears 
lasted the cormorants but eight days, and 
to feed them upon the meagre allowance 
of two pounds of raw flesh every other 
day is an almost impossible necessity. 
Only yesterday they were ready to eat the 
caboose up, for I would not give them 
pemmican. Corn-meal or beans they dis- 
dain to touch, and salt junk would kill 
them.'" 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE POLAR BEAR ARRIVES. 

u 1 T ERE is your long-wished-for polar 

JLjL bear, Malcolm : how do you like 
his portrait?" 

He was certainly not a pretty creature 
to look at ; nor did he appear at all amiable 
with his great wide head and grinning 
jaws showing such terrible teeth, while the 
powerful shoulders and thick, muscular 
fore legs made him still more formidable. 

Clara declared that his eyes were like a 
pig's, and the little Kyles were not at all 
complimentary to this " despot of the Arctic 
regions. M 

11 Naturalists consider it a remarkable 
thing," said Miss Harson, l< that, in spite of 
the ice and snow and bitter cold, added to 
the darkness and semi-darkness of the nine 
months' winter, the inhabitable regions 
around the North Pole are the home of 

229 



230 



WA TER-ANIMALS. 



several mammalia, of which the most for- 
midable is our charming friend here. Many 
of the other animals are migratory, moving 
south, and back again with the sun ; but the 




POLAR BEAR. 



polar bear may be called a constant resi- 
dent. This clumsy-looking animal is from 
eight to nine feet long-, and sometimes even 
larger, and he manages to shuffle along on 
the snow and ice at a very rapid pace. 
These great paws, both on the fore and 



THE POLAR BEAR ARRIVES. 23 1 

hind legs, are covered with natural mittens 
of long thick hair which keep the bear 
from sinking in the snow. He is equally 
at home in the water, as he is an excellent 
swimmer ; and his activity, whether on land 
or water, is something wonderful in a crea- 
ture so clumsily made. His yellowish- white 
fur grows short and fine over the back, and 
longer on the lower parts of the body. 
The feet are represented as bushy, with an 
extra supply of fur on the soles to give the 
animal a firmer hold on the ice." 

" I wish we could have seen the feet of 
those little bears that were bouncing about 
in the water at Central Park/' said Clara, 
regretfully. 

" But we saw their cunning little yellow 
heads, you know," replied Edith; "and 
they didn't look ugly at all, like this wicked 
old one." 

11 But that is just what they are growing 
into, Edie," replied her governess: "most 
young animals are 'cunning* and harmless, 
but as they gain in size and strength they 
act out their natures. It is very wonderful, 
too, to see how the Creator has provided 



232 WA TER-ANIMAL S. 

for these different natures with their special 
needs, and how his protecting care extends 
even to so savage and undesirable a crea- 
ture as the one we are considering. We 
may ask, Why should such a life as this be 
prolonged or made comfortable in any 
way? but God, for wise purposes which we 
cannot fathom, has placed this ferocious 
animal where he is best fitted to live, and 
so ordered even the color of his fur as to 
make it a protection from his enemies and 
an aid to him in approaching the animals 
upon which he subsists. During the long 
Arctic winter his coarse thick hair is white, 
like the snow and icebergs among- which 
he roams, while in the milder season it 
takes on a yellowish hue. The thickness 
of this fur protects the polar bear not only 
from the cold, but also against the tusks 
and talons of the animals on which it 
feeds." 

" I should think that bear would have a 
very good time," said Malcolm. 

" He does seem to enjoy life in his own 
way," said Miss Harson, "and not to be 
without his amusements, having been seen 



THE TOLAR BEAR ARRIVES. 233 

to slide down a steep icy bank on his hind 
quarters, for no other apparent purpose 
but because he liked it. His shaggy fur 
was as good a protection from injury as if 
he had been wrapped up in comfortables. " 

A sliding polar bear! The Elmridge 
children thought that if they could but 
have seen that their happiness would be 
complete. It was worth a journey to 
Greenland. 

"Does he skate too, Miss Harson?" 
asked Clara, laughingly. 

" In his fashion, he does, for he is ac- 
complished on the ice. Voyagers to the 
Arctic regions describe the polar bear as 
wandering over the fields of ice, mounting 
the hummocks and looking around for prey. 
With outstretched head, its little but keen 
eye directed to the various points of a wide 
horizon, the polar bear looks out for seals 
or scents with its quick nostrils the luscious 
smell of some half-putrid whale-flesh. It is 
said that a piece of fat thrown into the fire 
will draw a bear to a ship miles off." 

11 Does he swim there ?" asked Edith. 

" Yes, dear, if there is water enough ; if 



234 WATER-ANIMALS. 

not, he shuffles along on the ice. Seals are 
his favorite food ; and his wonderful swim- 
ming powers are scarcely a match for these 
slippery animals, who are such accomplished 
swimmers themselves. So Master Bear, in- 
stead of chasing his prey in the water, pre- 
fers to surprise it when it is asleep on a 
piece of ice." 

" Such a funny place to sleep on !" mur- 
mured Clara. 

"Funny for Miss Clara Kyle, but not 
funny for a seal. When chasing a seal in 
this way, the bear approaches very stealthily, 
making long dives, and so manages that at 
his last dive he comes up directly under the 
unfortunate seal, who either tumbles into 
the water in a fright, and is instantly 
snapped up, or is chased on the ice, where 
the bear has the advantage in point of 
speed and is sure to catch him. But the 
great banquet of the bear is upon a dead 
whale ; on which, in company with sharks, 
sea-birds, etc., he feeds until the carcass is 
so stripped that the weight of the bones 
sinks it, and the sharks have it all to 
themselves." 



THE POLAR BEAR ARRIVES. 235 

"I didn't know," said Malcolm, " that the 
polar bear was so much like a vulture or a 
hyena. He seems to be about as disagree- 
able in every way as he looks." 

"I don't want to see a live one," said 
Edith in great disgust : " he's too horrid." 

" Not altogether horrid, dear," replied 
her governess, " for the mother bear is 
very devoted to her little ones. You 
must know that, in the first place, she 
makes a very queer kind of nest for them 
in the snow, which I am going to tell you 
about. In November, or about that time, 
Papa Bruin goes off seal-hunting, and 
Mamma Bruin betakes herself to a snow- 
bank at the foot of some cliff. Here she 
burrows in the snow until she is settled to 
her satisfaction, and then, curling herself 
up comfortably, she lets the snow-drifts that 
are sure to come pile themselves up on her 
until there is such a thick coverlid between 
her and the outer air that not a single whiff 
of the keen, biting blast reaches her." 

" But what keeps her from smothering?" 
asked Malcolm. 

" Her own breath, which keeps a small 



236 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

passage open in the roof of her den. The 

warmth of her body, too, enlarges the nest, 

so that she can move herself as she likes. 

It is an enormously fat bear that goes into 

this curious residence ; for she has been 

eating all that she could possibly stuff 

down her capacious throat for some time 

before, that she might be able to go for 

several months without another meal. 

Some time in March — and she always 

knows just the right time — Mrs. Bear 

breaks down the walls of her house, and 

comes forth with two or three baby bears 

about as large as a Newfoundland dog. 

The little ones have been born under the 

snow, and now they are ready to accompany 

their mother on her tramps over the ice.'' 

" How cunning they must look!" said 

Clara. "I wish we could have seen those 

little ones at the Park running- around. " 

<_» 

"Don't you think," asked her brother 
mischievously, " that some one else would 
have been running too?" 

"Yes," was the laughing reply, "I think 
that three people would. But Miss Har- 
son, I dare say, would have walked." 




MRS. BEAR AND LITTLE BEAR. 



238 WA TER- ANIMALS. 

"She might have outrun you all," said 
that young lady, "for she is not fond of 
having even little bears 'running around/ 
But we seldom know what we shall do in 
danger until the danger comes. To return 
to Mrs. Bear and her little ones : it is said 
that when she is pursued she will seize her 
cubs and either carry or push them forward; 
and these comical little animals seem to 
understand what is going on, and lighten 
her labors by placing themselves across 
her path to be shoved on. They were 
seen once, when they had been shoved 
some vards in advance, to run on until the 
old bear overtook them, when they arranged 
themselves in turn for a second throw." 

This amused the children very much, 
and the little polar bears were certainly far 
more entertaining than their parents. 

"The captain of a vessel in the Arctic 
regions," continued Miss Harson, "once 
went in pursuit of three bears, as his Es- 
kimo dogs were, as usual, in want of fresh 
meat, and he saw that they were a mother- 
bear and two young ones. He wished to 
secure the cubs alive, and was very careful 



THE POLAR BEAR ARRIVES. 239 

in shooting at the old one. But all three 
fell and were taken on board the ship ; and 
the captain describes their affection as quite 
heartrending : 

" ' When the cubs saw their mother was 
wounded, they commenced licking her 
wounds, regardless of their own sufferings. 
At length the mother began to eat the 
snow, a sure sign that she was mortally 
wounded. Even then her care for the cubs 
did not cease, as she kept continually turn- 
ing her head from one to the other, and, 
though roaring with pain, she seemed to 
warn them to escape if possible. Their 
attachment was as great as hers ; and I 
was thus obliged to destroy them all. It 
went much against my feelings, but the 
memory of my starving dogs reconciled 
me to the necessity/ " 

" Poor things !" sighed Edith; "what a 
pity r 

" Three polar bears less in the world !" 
replied Malcolm. 

" At another time," continued their gov- 
erness, "a polar bear with one cub was 
pursued by two men and five dogs. The 



24-0 IV A TER- ANIMALS. 

mother ran, but the little one being unable 
either to keep ahead of the dogs or to 
keep pace with her, she turned back and, 
putting her head under its haunches, threw 
it some distance ahead. The cub safe for 
the moment, she would wheel around and 
face the dogs, so as to give it a chance to 
run away ; but it always stopped just as 
it alighted till she came up and threw it 
ahead again : it seemed to expect her aid, 
and would not go on without it. Some- 
times the mother would run a few yards 
ahead, as if to coax the young one up to 
her, and w 7 hen the dogs came up she would 
turn on them and drive them back ; then, 
as they dodged her blows, she would rejoin 
the cub and push it on, sometimes putting 
her head under it, sometimes catching it in 
her mouth by the nape of the neck." 

"Oh!" said Clara, forgetting her horror 
of polar bears, " I hope she got away." 

" I almost feel that I hope so too," was 
the reply; "but the cub was soon unable 
to go any farther, and the men and the 
dogs were too much for the mother. She 
never went more than two yards ahead, 



THE POLAR BEAR ARRIVES. 24 1 

constantly looking at the cub. When the 
dogs came near her she would sit upon 
her haunches and take the little one between 
her hind legs, fighting the dogs with her 
paws and roaring so that she could have 
been heard a mile off. She would stretch 
her neck and snap at the nearest dog with 
her shining teeth, whirling her paws like 
the arms of a windmill. If she missed her 
aim, not daring to pursue one dog lest the 
others should harm the cub, she would give 
a great roar of baffled rage, and go on 
pawing and snapping and facing the ring, 
grinning at the dogs with her mouth 
stretched wide open." 

11 1 suppose the poor little cub was dread- 
fully frightened/' said Edith. 

" And yet, when her mother was killed, 
she jumped upon the body and reared up, 
for the first time growling hoarsely. The 
dogs seemed quite afraid of the little crea- 
ture, she fought so actively and made so 
much noise, and, while tearing mouthfuls 
of hair from the dead mother, they would 
spring aside the minute the cub turned 
toward them. The men drove the do^s 

o 

16 



242 WATER-ANIMALS. 

off for a time, but were obliged to shoot 
the cub at last, as she would not leave the 
body. ,, 

The children were so sorry for the poor 
little bear that they quite forgot her grow- 
ing up into a savage big one. 

"Polar bears," continued Miss Harson, 
"are very dangerous animals to hunt; but 
it is said that they can be hunted to better 
advantage in the water than on land. Here, 
however, one will sometimes throw a canoe 
into the air or crunch it in pieces with its 
terrible jaws. When attacked in the water, 
it tries to escape by swimming to the ice ; 
and when this is in small loose pieces, it 
dives under the water and appears on the 
opposite side. It has been seen, when shot 
at a distance and able to escape, to retire 
to the shelter of a hummock and apply 
snow to the wound to stop the bleeding/' 

"Well," said Malcolm, "I'll remember 
that the next time I cut my finger in the 
tool-room. Fve actually learned something 
from a polar bear !" 

" By watching the habits of animals we 
may learn a great deal," was the reply; 



THE POLAR BEAR ARRIVES. 243 

"and even the most insignificant ones can 
teach us something. The Eskimos, who 
scarcely seem beyond intelligent animals 
themselves, have, according to a description 
that was written quite a number of years 
ago, a most ingenious plan for the destruc- 
tion of this bear without engaging in 
personal combat with so dangerous an 
enemy. They take a stout piece of whale- 
bone about two feet in length, bend it 
double and push the two ends into a piece 
of blubber. The whalebone thus prepared 
is placed in the open air, where the cold 
immediately freezes the blubber and holds 
the ends of the whalebone fast. The 
weapon is now complete. Armed with 
this singular instrument, the Eskimos sally 
out in search of a bear, and, on finding 
one, provoke it to chase them — a matter 
of no great difficulty, as ■ nennook ' gen- 
erally labors under an infirmity of temper 
and needs but little irritation. 

" So the bear sets off after the Eskimos, 
and the Eskimos run away from the bear 
as fast as they can until the animal is in 
right earnest. At last the bear gains on 



244 WATER-ANIMALS. 

them, and is permitted to come tolerably 
close, when the fugitives throw the pre- 
pared whalebone at it. The bear sniffs at 
it, and, finding it to be eatable, swallows it 
and resumes the chase. Before very long, 
however, the heat of its interior thaws the 
blubber, and the whalebone, being thus set 
free, springs open, and interferes so mate- 
rially with the digestion of the unfortunate 
animal that it gives up the chase, and soon 
dies from the injuries inflicted. ,, 

"That seems very cruel/' said Clara. 

" It does indeed ; but we must remember 
that the polar bear is a very useful animal 
to the Eskimo after he is killed, his flesh 
and fat furnishing them with food, while the 
skin is used for a variety of purposes. 
Sometimes it is made, without cutting it 
open, into a warm bed-sack — or, rather, the 
bed itself — by turning the furry side in- 
ward ; and into this the Eskimo creeps and 
sleeps very comfortably/ ' 

No one seemed to think this bed a very 
attractive one, and presently Malcolm 
asked : 

" Do the Eskimos always hunt polar 



THE POLAR BEAR ARRIVES. 245 

bears with a piece of whalebone ? It 
seems such a funny thing to do." 

" Oh no," replied his governess; " they 
often shoot them or spear them. Eskimos, 
as we have seen, inhabit many different re- 
gions, and their customs vary, even at short 
distances ; besides, they were not acquainted 
with firearms until travelers from civilized 
countries introduced them. The polar bear 
is such a powerful and daring adversary 
that it is a formidable thing to attempt its 
destruction ; and it has a habit of using its 
terrible teeth in battle which leaves lifelong 
scars on those hunters who are not killed 
by it. ' The hugging, pawing and boxing/ 
says one who has seen this bear in its native 
ice-fields, ■ which characterize the black and 
grisly bears, are resorted to by it only 
under peculiar circumstances. While wan- 
dering over the icy fields it will rear it- 
self upon its hind legs to enlarge its circle 
of vision ; and I have often seen it in this 
attitude pawing the air as if practicing for 
an apprehended conflict/ " 

The idea of such a great creature on its 
hind legs, practicing such queer gymnastics, 



246 WATER-ANIMALS. 

excited a burst of merriment in the little 
party, and ' nennook/ as the Eskimos call 
it, was amusing as well as dangerous. 

" Dr. Kane," continued the young lady, 
11 tells a funny little story of himself and a 
polar bear hunting the same seal. The fa- 
mous explorer had taken off his shoes and 
was crawling on his stomach, in a half-frozen 
condition, along the ice after his sleeping 
prey. When he got within shooting dis- 
tance the seal suddenly rolled on one side 
and lifted its head. Feeling that he had 
nothing to do with this movement, as the 
animal was gazing in an opposite direction, 
the hunter soon discovered a rival in a 
large bear, who was also lying on his stom- 
ach, waiting, with commendable patience 
and cold feet, for a chance of nearer 
approach. 

" 4 What should I do?' he continues. 
1 The bear was doubtless worth more to me 
than the seal, but the seal was now within 
shot, and the bear a "bird in the bush." 
Besides, my bullet once invested in the 
seal would leave me defenceless. I might 
be giving a dinner to the bear, and saving 




RIVAL HUNTERS. 



248 WATER-ANIMALS. 

myself for his dessert. These meditations 
were soon brought to a close, for a second 
movement of the seal so aroused my 
hunter's instincts that I pulled the trigger. 
My cap alone exploded. Instantly, with a 
floundering splash, the seal descended into 
the deep, and the bear, with two or three 
rapid leaps, stood disconsolate by the place 
of his descent. For a single moment we 
stared each other in the face, and then, 
with that discretion which is the better part 
of valor, the bear ran off in one direction, 
and I followed his example in the other/ ' 

Malcolm, who had been waiting with 
eager interest to hear what the hunter did 
next, was so overcome by this unexpected 
ending that he rolled on the floor with 
laughter. His sisters laughed and Miss 
Harson laughed, and, having begun, no 
one seemed able to stop. 

"It was no laughing matter," said the 
young lady presently, "to the person 
concerned, who, in the course of his ex- 
plorations, had had numerous undesirable 
meetings with polar bears. Once, when 
about two miles away from the brig — luck- 



THE POLAR BEAR ARRIVES. 249 

ily, as he says, not more — he heard what he 
thought was the bellow of a walrus on the 
ice. Although at noonday, it was too dark 
to distinguish anything not close at hand ; 
but a second roar said ' Bear,' as plainly as 
the words could be uttered. Roar upon 
roar followed ; but the noise suddenly 
ceased, and, finding it very cold on the ice, 
the watcher concluded to crawl to the edge 
of it and peer under his hands into the dark 
shadow of the hummock ridges. 

" ' I did so,' he says. ' One look : nothing. 
A second : no bear, after all. A third : what 
is that long rounded shade? Stained ice? 
Yes, stained ice. The stained ice gave a 
gross menagerie roar, and charged on the 
instant for my position. I had not even a 
knife, and did not wait to think what would 
have been appropriate if I had had one. I 
ran, throwing off first one mitten and then 
its fellow to avoid pursuit. I gained the 
brig, and the bear got my mittens. I got 
back one of them an hour afterward, but 
the other was carried off as a trophy in 
spite of all the rifles we could bring to 
the rescue/ " 



250 WA TER ANIMALS. 

"I wonder/' said Clara, "that Dr. Kane 
didn't get eaten up?" 

"He had some very narrow escapes," 
replied Miss Harson, " and they were gen- 
erally very comical ones. Some of the 
party who had gone on an exploring-tour 
brought back accounts of a rather exciting 
visit from a bear in the dead of night, when 
all were asleep in their tent on the ice. 
One of them was awakened by something 
that seemed to be scratching the snow near 
his head, and presently he discovered a 
great creature of some kind walking around 
the outside of the tent. He shouted to his 
companions, but did not disturb the un- 
known visitor, who had arrived at a time 
when all the guns were out of reach on the 
sledge and there was not even a stick 
inside. 

"While the startled men were consider- 
ing the idea of rushing out for their arms, 
a large bear presented himself at the tent- 
opening to see how things looked inside. 
Matches and torches of newspaper were 
fired at him, in the vain hope that he would 
be driven away ; but after musing for a little 



THE POLAR BEAR ARRIVES. 25 I 

while upon what he seemed to think rather 
strange antics, though harmless on the 
whole, he took up his station at the door- 
way and fell to work on a seal which had 
been shot the day before. 

11 Seeing him thus occupied, one of the 
party quietly cut a hole in the back of the 
tent with his knife, and crawled out to get 
a boat-hook which helped to support the 
ridge-pole. With this he dealt the intruder 
a blow on the nose that made him retreat 
beyond the sledge, and the moment was 
seized to snatch a rifle and send a well- 
directed ball through the bear's body. 

" It was an especial season for bears, 
who were not only dangerous, but mis- 
chievous and destructive, utterly ruining 
the * cache ' or storehouse, which had been 
built with great care, and leaving their 
marks on everything. These tigers of the 
ice had things entirely their own way, and 
no obstacle seemed to hinder them. ■ Not 
a morsel of pemmican remained except in 
the iron cases, which, being round, with 
conical ends, defied both claws and teeth. 
They had rolled and pawed them in every 



252 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

direction, tossing them about like footballs, 
although over eighty pounds in weight. An 
alcohol case, strongly iron-bound, was 
dashed into small fragments, and a tin 
can of liquor mashed and twisted almost 
into a ball. The claws of the beast had 
perforated the metal and torn it up as with 
a cold chisel. 

" ' They were too dainty for salt meats ; 
ground coffee they had an evident relish 
for ; old canvas was a favorite, for some 
reason or other ; even our flag, which had 
been reared " to take possession " of the 
waste, was gnawed down to the very staff. 
They had made a regular frolic of it, roll- 
ing our bread-barrels over the ice-foot and 
into the broken outside ice; and, unable to 
masticate our heavy india-rubber cloth, they 
had tied it up in unimaginable hard knots/ ' 

" I don't see how bears could tie knots," 
said Edith when the merriment over these 
antics had somewhat subsided. 

" I cannot explain it, dear," replied her 
governess, laughing; "but I think we must 
acknowledge the polar bear to be the most 
ingenious of all the bear family." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

A THRILLING STORY. 

"TV /TORE stories about polar bears ?" 
iVJL said Miss Harson, in apparent sur- 
prise. " Why, you have had ever so many 
stories now ; I wonder how many it would 
take to satisfy you ?" 

11 One good long story," replied Malcolm, 
promptly : M those were only anecdotes." 

"But they were very nice/' said Edith, 
to whom this seemed like a reflection on 
their governess ; " and the bears were very 
funny. But couldn't you tell us some- 
thing dreadful, Miss Harson — something 
to frighten us, you know ?" 

The young lady was very much amused 
by this request, to which she replied : 

" You mean something tragical, Edie ; 
and I think I can gratify you without really 
frightening you. It is quite a terrible story, 
but it turned out well, after all, and will, 

253 



254 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

I hope, satisfy you on the subject of bears. 
I read such an account some time ago, and 
I think I will call it 

"UNWELCOME VISITORS. 

" Some years ago a large exploring-party 
went out in the interests of the Hudson 
Bay Fur Company to examine a new tract 
where a fort could be built, and they met 
with some very strange and startling ad- 
ventures. 

"The region to which they went was not 
an utterly cheerless waste in summer, for 
there were fir trees in abundance, as well 
as pine and birch on the wooded heights, 
and of these trees their house or fort was 
built. This was made as warm and com- 
fortable as possible, and a strong fence of 
pointed stakes set up around it. An inner 
court also was built, and a large wooden 
shed beyond the house, which was filled 
with fuel for the coming winter. An abun- 
dant store of provisions, and tame reindeer 
to give them milk, were provided for the 
long polar night ; and this soon came upon 
them. 



A THRILLING STORY. 255 

" In spite of all their care the party were 
half frozen, as the temperature indoors 
could not be raised above 20 . No one 
dared to open doors and windows, as the 
vapor in the rooms would have been im- 
mediately converted into snow ; and in 
the passage the breathing of the inmates 
already produced that result. Every now 
and then dull reports were heard which 
startled those unaccustomed to such high 
latitudes. They were caused by the creak- 
ing of the trunks of trees, of which the 
walls were composed, under the influence 
of the intense cold. The spruce beer, 
made from a decoction of voun^ fir-branch- 
lets, froze, bursting the barrels in which it 
was kept ; while all solid bodies resisted 
the introduction of heat as if they were 
petrified. 

"This seemed bad enough ; but presently 
came the announcement that the wood was 
giving out. The cold was so intense that 
those who were exposed to it lost their 
breath and fainted on the ice, struck down 
by the cold almost as if by lightning. ,, 

"Oh — h!" gasped the audience, trying 



2 5 6 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

in vain to think how it would feel to be as 
cold as this. 

" The next thing that happened," contin- 
ued Miss Harson, "was bears T 

It was getting to be delightfully horrible, 
and Malcolm especially was in a state of 
agreeable expectation. 

"There were half a dozen of them, 
where one would have been too many ; and, 
possibly feeling the intense cold themselves, 
in addition to hunger, these most unwel- 
come visitors had managed to climb over 
the palisades, and, liking the look of the 
smoke from the chimneys, they were walk- 
ing up to the house." 

Edith was getting very close indeed to 
her governess, as she used to do when a 
wee girl if anything terrible appeared to 
be coming", and even Clara was not much 
behind. 

"It's getting very interesting," said Mal- 
colm, who was leaning over the back of 
the young lady's chair. " What did they 
do, Miss Harson ?" 

"They did a variety of things," was the 
laughing reply, " if you mean the bears ; 



A THRILLING STORY. 2$ J 

and it certainly was an uncommon perform- 
ance for a procession of them to march 
boldly up to a dwelling full of people and 
make a call. They were seen from the 
windows without any feeling of fear, as it 
was supposed that they would soon get 
tired of prowling around the house and 
take themselves off. 

"But the creatures had no idea of leav- 
ing, and they seemed possessed with a 
determination to get into the house, as 
every now and then one of them would 
push its great head against the window- 
pane and display the rows of terrible teeth 
as it uttered a threatening growl." 

The children now glanced at the windows, 
as if expecting to see polar bears on the out- 
side ; but Miss Harson reminded them that 
bears of any kind had never been seen 
within many miles of Elmridge. 

" Perhaps I had better stop," she contin- 
ued, "if my story is too exciting." 

"Oh no! no!" was the chorus; "please 
go on." And they all tried to look as 
brave as possible. 

" It was a long and tiresome visit, last- 

17 



258 WATER-ANIMALS. 

ing all that day and all night, and you may 
be sure that a strict watch was kept on the 
bears' movements. Early the next morn- 
ing came the welcome news that they were 
gone ; no one could see them anywhere. 
This comfort did not last long, however, as 
one of the party, who went up to the loft, 
where the provisions and valuable furs 
were stored, declared that the bears were 
walking around on the roof." 

"Oh!" gasped Edith, "then they could 
get down the chimney !" 

" No danger of that, dear, as they would 
not care to be burned. Two or three of 
the men rushed to the loft and had the 
pleasure of hearing the growls and heavy 
footsteps of the four-legged savages ; and 
as their great claws caught in the laths of 
the roof beneath the ice, there was danger 
that they might tear away the woodwork. 
It was too cold, however, to remain in the 
loft, as all were giddy and faint from the 
exposure, and they rejoined the party down 
stairs, who were trying their best to keep 
warm with low fires and scarcely a stick of 
wood. The furs were brought down into 



A THRILLING STORY. 2$g 

the sitting-room to keep them from the 
bears — who, strange to say, would have 
made a meal of them — and also to pile on 
the perishing human beings, who expected 
to freeze to death. For those wretched 
bears had broken some of the laths of the 
roof with their weight and their claws, and 
this let the fearful outside cold into every 
part of the building. The creatures were 
now working with might and main to get 
into the house. 

" One brave man volunteered to go for 
wood ; and although the shed was not 
more than fifty steps from the house, he 
fell fainting to the ground on breathing the 
stinging cold of the outer air, and had to 
be dragged back by a rope, one end of 
which was fastened around his waist, while 
the other was held by his companions 
within doors. In carrying him in some- 
thing dreadful happened. 

" Before the outer door was quite closed 
an enormous bear threw the whole weight 
of his body against it, and growled horribly. 
He was resolved to get in this time ; and 
the huge head, with its open, ravenous 



260 WATER-ANIMALS. 

mouth, and one great fore paw, were al- 
ready between the door and the wall, when 
a pistol was fired into the now conveniently 
open mouth, and the bear fell backward, 
probably killed. It did not take long to 
shut and fasten that door, and the prisoners 
returned to their freezing. 

" Finally, the bears got into the loft, 
where they made such an uproar that night 
that no one could sleep. There were con- 
stant growling, stamping of feet and tear- 
ing of claws, but there seemed little danger 
of their breaking through the beams of the 
ceiling into the lower floor. They managed, 
however, to do a great deal of mischief in 
an unexpected way, and to add fresh suffer- 
ing to the trials of the inmates. The pipes 
of the stove and kitchen furnace ran all 
along the loft, and, being made of lime- 
bricks but imperfectly cemented together, 
they could not resist great pressure for 
any length of time. Now, some of the 
bears scratched at the masonry, whilst 
others leant against the pipes for the 
sake of the warmth from the stove ; so 
that the bricks began to give way, and 



A THRILLING STORY. 26 1 

soon the stoves and furnace ceased to 
draw. 

" This was discouraging enough, but there 
was worse to come. As the fires got lower 
and lower, the house was filled with a thick, 
disgusting smoke, the pipes were broken 
and the lamps went out. It was suffocation 
to remain indoors, and death by freezing to 
go out. To despatch the bears was a last 
resort ; and, seizing hatchets and whatever 
else came handy, the men rushed to the 
loft and began the battle in total darkness. 
Shots were fired into the smoke, and howls 
were heard and scratches received in re- 
turn. But the brave men would probably 
have had the worst of it if help had not 
come in a very startling form. 

" A terrible rumbling sound suddenly 
drowned the tumult, the ground became 
violently agitated and the house rocked as 
if it were being torn up from its founda- 
tions. The beams of the walls separated, 
and through the openings the terrified 
bears were seen rushing away into the 
darkness, howling with rage and fright. ,, 

"What was the matter, Miss Harson ?" 



262 WATER-ANIMALS. 

" An earthquake ; which doubtless saved 
the lives of the frightened people. Ani- 
mals are particularly terrified by anything 
out of the ordinary course of nature, and 
the bears now felt it to be quite time to 
leave the house/' 

" I wish they'd all been killed," said 
Clara, quite fiercely. 

" They were very thoroughly frightened," 
replied her governess, "according to the 
story ; but it was not enough of an earth- 
quake to kill them. It was sufficient, 
though, to turn the house to one side and 
to burst the walls open, leaving the inmates 
in a wretched condition for a day or two. 
Repairs were made as quickly as possible, 
and fortunately there was a sudden change 
in the weather, and it became warm enough 
to snow." 

"'Warm enough to snow'?" said Edith 
in a bewildered way : " why, Miss Harson, 
it's awful cold when it snows." 

" Scarcely ' awful/ dear, although it often 
seems very cold indeed to us. But with 
the experience these poor people had we 
should think it like spring in comparison. 



A THRILLING STORY. 263 

It was supposed that the earthquake drove 
away the cold as well as the bears ; and 
this was one of the few occasions on which 
such a visitor could be thought desirable." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

A CHANGE OF SCENE. 

" T CALL that mean y yy exclaimed Malcolm, 

X gazing ruefully at the liquid pond ; 
u just when we've got used to living at the 
North Pole to have it run away and leave 
us ! And Sim and his mother and the 
white-headed baby all gone off too — it's a 
perfect shame !" 

"I don't wonder you are indignant/' re- 
plied Miss Harson gravely ; " people ought 
-to be able to skate all the year round ; and 
for a boy who cares nothing for tents or 
boating or anything of that kind, and who 
never eats fruit or vegetables, and who 
does not care for flowers or trees or smiling 
skies, the change is certainly very hard." 

" Now you are laughing at me, Miss 
Harson." 

"Yes, and I mean to laugh at you, you 

264 



A CHANGE OF SCENE. 265 

absurd boy ! / do not wish it to be always 
winter, if you do ; and I doubt if Clara and 
Edith do, either. ,, 

The little girls, however, were looking 
rather mournful too; it was such fun on the 
pond, and the ice and snow were so pretty, 
and they liked to hear about the Eskimos 
and the polar bears. 

" But you cannot be always hearing about 
them/' said their governess, laughing ; " and 
there are some other people to hear about, 
and at least two very peculiar animals. 
Suppose that we take a sudden jump this 
evening from the Arctic Circle to the 
Equator, and see what is to be found 
there?" 

When evening came they were quite 
ready, and Malcolm said, rather unexpect- 
edly, 

"When any one speaks of Africa, I al- 
ways think of ' From Greenland's icy 
mountains/ " 

"That is a curious connection of ideas, I 
think ; but you probably mean that it re- 
minds you of the missionary hymn begin- 
ning— 



266 WATER-ANIMALS. 

1 From Greenland's icy mountains, 

From India's coral strand, 
Where Afric's sunny fountains 

Roll down their golden sand, — 
From many an ancient river, 

From many a palmy plain, 
They call us to deliver 

Their land from error's chain.' " 



"Yes," said Malcolm, "that's it, Miss 
Harson ; I knew there was something about 
Africa in it." 

" Having* found that out," continued the 
young lady, "we will now see what there is 
in Africa. We shall be sure to find enough 
to make us reverence the noble men and 
women who have risked their lives, and 
often lost them, in carrying the gospel to 
the heathen inhabitants of what has been 
very properly called the ' Dark Continent/ 
We have just been freezing in the Arctic 
regions, and we shall not find any more 
enjoyment in roasting under the Equator. 
You all know how very hard it is to bear 
the heat in our large, comfortable house at 
Elmridge when the thermometer reaches 
one hundred, or even ninety, degrees: 
think, then, what it must be to live where 



A CHANGE OF SCENE. 267 

one hundred and thirty degrees is not con- 
sidered extraordinary. Those who have 
been born and brought up in such a cli- 
mate take it as a matter of course, as the 
Eskimos do their intense cold ; but to go 
from a temperate region to such an extreme 
of heat is almost unbearable. " 

" Miss Harson," asked Clara, very seri- 
ously, " do you think that missionaries 
ought to go to such dreadful places where 
they can't live? 

11 But they do live, dear ; that is, a great 
many of them do. And in the very worst 
places white men are found who have gone 
there to get rich by trading with the natives. 
If people will risk their lives for the sake 
of making money, should those who pro- 
fess to be Christ's faithful soldiers and 
servants not be willing to do as much to 
save souls from perishing? One of the 
African chiefs replied to a missionary who 
had been talking to him of the day of 
judgment: 'You startle me: these words 
make all my bones to shake ; I have no 
more strength in me ; but my forefathers 
were living at the same time yours were, 



268 WATER-ANIMALS. 

and how is it that they did not send them 
word about these terrible things sooner? 
They all passed away into darkness without 
knowing whither they were going/ " 

"Did they mind the dark?" asked Edith, 
a little surprised. 

"A very terrible kind of darkness is 
meant, dear," replied her governess; "but 
why do you ask?" 

"I thought it was always dark there," 
said the little girl, " and that it was called 
the Dark Continent!' 

" Dark because unknown, and the people 
who live there have dark skins ; but they 
glory in the bright sunshine, and darkness 
is quite as terrible to them as it is to us. 
But their understandings are darkened, so 
that they see things quite differently; and 
the same chief, who loved the missionary 
and saw how anxious he was that the peo- 
ple should become Christians, said to him 
at another time, ' Do you imagine these 
people will ever believe by your merely 
talking to them ? I can make them do 
nothing except by thrashing them ; and, if 
you like, I shall call my headmen, and with 




RAIN DOCTOR. 



27O WATER-ANIMALS. 

our litupa (whips of rhinoceros hide) we 
will soon make them all believe together/ 
This was a novel way of converting people ; 
but as the chief did not condescend to ask 
their opinion in other matters, he saw no 
reason for consulting them about their 
becoming Christians." 

" Did he become a Christian ?" asked 
Malcolm, "and did he really whip the 
people for being heathens ?" 

" He did become a Christian, and did as 
well as he could; but he was taught a 
better way than that for influencing his 
people. The greatest trouble the mission- 
ary had was with the/ rain-makers/ because 
the people believed in them so thoroughly, 
and in such a country as Africa rain is one 
of the greatest blessings. The ground is 
often parched for weeks, and even for 
months, without it and a great variety of 
things are used by the * rain doctors ' to 
make the rain come. Dr. Livingstone gives 
an account of a conversation that he held 
with one of these supposed wonderful men, 
who certainly knew how to talk very well ; 
it went on like this : 



A CHANGE OF SCENE. . 2? I 

"'Medical Doctor: Hail, friend! How 
very many medicines you have about you, 
this morning ! Why, you have every med- 
icine in the country here/ 

"'Rain Doctor: Very true, friend; and 
I ought, for the whole country needs the 
rain I am making/ 

" 'M. D. : So you really believe that you 
can command the clouds? I think that can 
be done by God alone/ 

" '/?. D. : We both believe the very same 
thing. It is God that makes the rain, but 
I pray to him by means of these medicines; 
and, the rain coming, of course it is then 
mine. It was I who made it for the Bak- 
wains for many years; ask them: they will 
tell you the same as I do/ 

Ui M. D.: But we are distinctly told, in 
the parting words of our Saviour, that we 
can pray to God acceptably in his name 
alone, and not by means of medicines/ 

"'R. D.: Truly. But God told us dif- 
ferently. He made black men first, and 
did not love us as he did the white men. 
He made you beautiful and gave you 
clothing and guns and gunpowder and 



2J2 WATER-ANIMALS. 

horses and wagons, and many other things 
about which we know nothing. But toward 
us he had no heart. He gave us nothing 
except the assegai and cattle and rain- 
making, and he did not give us hearts like 
yours. We never love each other. Other 
tribes place medicines about our country to 
prevent the rain, so that we may be dis- 
persed by hunger and go to them and 
augment their power. We must dissolve 
their charms by our medicines. God has 
given us one little thing which you know 
nothing of: he has given us the knowledge 
of certain medicines by which we can make 
rain. We do not despise those things 
which you possess, though we are ignorant 
of them. We don't understand your book, 
yet we don't despise it. You ought not to 
despise our little knowledge, though you 
are ignorant of it/ 

" *M. D. : I don't despise what I am 
ignorant of; I only think you are mistaken 
in saying that you have medicines which 
can influence the rain at all/ 

" ' R. D. : That's just the way people talk 
when they talk on a subject of which they 



A CHANGE OF SCENE. 2JI 

have no knowledge. When we first opened 
our eyes we found our forefathers making 
rain, and we follow in their footsteps. You 
who send to Kuruman for corn and who irri- 
gate your garden may do without rain : we 
cannot manage in that way. If we had no 
rain, the cattle would have no pasture, the 
cows give no milk, our children become 
lean and die, our wives run away to other 
tribes who do make rain and have corn, 
and the whole tribe become dispersed and 
lost; our fire would go out/ 

* ' M. D. : I quite agree with you as to 
the value of the rain, but you cannot charm 
the clouds by medicines. You wait till you 
see the clouds come ; then you use your 
medicines, and take the credit which be- 
longs to God only/ 

"' R. D.: I use my medicines, and you 
employ yours ; we are both doctors, and 
doctors are not deceivers. You give a pa- 
tient medicine. Sometimes God is pleased 
to heal him by means of your medicine ; 
sometimes not — he dies. When he is 
cured you take the credit of what God 
does. I do the same. Sometimes God 
is 



274 WA TER-ANIMA LS. 

grants us rain, sometimes not. When he 
does, we take the credit of the charm. 
When a patient dies, you don't give up 
trust in your medicines ; neither do I when 
rain fails. If you wish me to leave off my 
medicines, why continue your own?' 

" t M. D. : I give medicine to living creat- 
ures within my reach, and can see the ef- 
fects, though no cure follows ; you pretend 
to charm the clouds, which are so far above 
us that your medicines never reach them. 
The clouds usually lie in one direction, and 
your smoke goes in another. God alone 
can command the clouds. Only try and 
wait patiently : God will give us rain with- 
out your medicines/ 

"So," continued Miss Harson, "the talk 
would go on for some time. Dr. Living- 
stone says that he never could convince one 
of them in the matter of rain-making. 
4 The general effect of argument is to pro- 
duce the impression that you are not anx- 
ious for rain at all ; and it is very undesirable 
to allow the idea to spread that you do not 
take a generous interest in their welfare.' " 

The children were very much interested 



A CHANGE OF SCENE. 2J$ 

in the conversation between the missionary 
and the rain-maker, but they wondered how 
the latter could help believing that the 
power of sending rain belongs to God 
alone. 

"That is because you do not quite under- 
stand about these poor Africans, M replied 
their governess ; u and it certainly does seem 
strange to us. But you must remember that 
they have always believed in this rain-mak- 
ing, and to be suddenly told that there is no 
truth in it is very unwelcome to them. If 
it pleased God to do as he did with Elijah 
and the priests of Baal when he sent down 
visible fire from heaven to show his power 
over the heathen, the missionary's work 
would be easy ; but his only weapon is the 
word of God revealed through his Son. 
There is so much suffering in that hot 
country for want of rain — which means 
nothing to eat as well as nothing to drink 
— that the rain-makers, who seldom begin 
their spells until they see clouds in the sky, 
are treated with great respect." 

"What do they do, Miss Harson," asked 
Clara, " to make rain ?" 



276 WATER-ANIMALS. 

"A great many silly things, dear, which 
do not seem worth repeating. Among 
other ingredients, they collect every root 
and plant to be found in the country and 
burn them; the ascending smoke is sup- 
posed to bring down the rain, which often 
follows in a day or two." 

" It's a pity/' said Malcolm, " that we can't 
give them some of ours, since they want it 
so much and we have more than we need." 

There had been four rainy days in suc- 
cession, and the young people at Elmridge 
felt quite badly used. 

" Yes," replied his governess ; " if it were 
always best for people to have just what 
they want, it would be a pity. But we have 
no reason to think that it is. The thing to 
be considered is how we bear the troubles 
and disappointments that are sent ; and 
these poor Bakwains seem to bear them 
very well. The women parted with most 
of their ornaments to purchase corn from 
more fortunate tribes. The children scoured 
the country in search of the numerous bulbs 
and roots which can sustain life, and the men 
engaged in hunting/ " 



A CHANGE OF SCENE. 277 

" I should think the children would be 
afraid," said Edith. " Suppose a great lion 
should spring on them?" 

" Such a thing would not be very likely 
to happen, Edie, even in Africa; for these 
dangerous animals are not at all common, 
and they are .seldom seen in the day-time. 
The missionary says that it is very hard to 
teach half-starved heathen, but that in a 
Christian country people with painfully 
empty stomachs would not behave any 
better. The tribes, too, are often at war 
with each other, which is a great hindrance ; 
and after going a short distance the mission- 
ary may be brought to a sudden standstill 
by finding that he is on hostile ground. 
He perseveres, however, through heat and 
drought and discouragements of all sorts ; 
and here is a very interesting account of a 
day among the South Africans : 

" * We rose early, because, however hot 
the day may have been, the evening, night 
and morning at Kolobeng were deliciously 
refreshing. After family worship and break- 
fast between six and seven, we went to keep 
school for all who would attend, men, 



278 WATER-ANIMALS. 

women and children being all invited. 
School over at eleven o'clock, while the 
missionary's wife was occupied in domestic 
matters the missionary himself had some 
manual labor as a smith, carpenter or gar- 
dener, according to whatever was needed 
for ourselves or for the people : if for 
the latter, they worked for us in the gar- 
den or at some other employment; skilled 
labor was thus exchanged for the unskilled. 
After dinner and an hour's rest, the wife 
attended her infant school, which the young, 
who were left by their parents entirely to 
their own caprice, liked amazingly, and 
for which they generally mustered a hun- 
dred strong ; or she varied that with a 
sewing-school, having classes of girls to 
learn the art; this too was equally well 
relished. 

" ' During the day every operation must 
be superintended, and both husband and 
wife must labor till the sun declines. After 
sunset the husband went into the town to 
converse with any one willing to do so — 
sometimes on general subjects, at other 
times on religion. On three nights of the 



A CHANGE OF SCENE. 279 

week, as soon as the milking of the cows 
was over and it had become dark, we had 
a public religious service, and one of in- 
struction on secular subjects aided by 
pictures and specimens. 

"'These services were diversified by 
attending upon the sick and prescribing 
for them, giving food, and otherwise assist- 
ing the poor and wretched. We tried to 
gain their affections by attending to the 
wants of the body. The smallest acts of 
friendship — an obliging word, a civil look 
— are, as St. Xavier thought, no despicable 
part of the missionary armor. Nor ought 
the good opinion of the most abject to be 
disregarded when politeness may secure it. 
Their good word in the aggregate forms a 
reputation which may be well employed in 
procuring favor for the gospel. Show kind 
attention to the reckless opponents of 
Christianity on the bed of sickness and 
pain, and they never can become your 
personal enemies. Here, if anywhere, love 
begets love/ " 

" What good people the missionary and 
his wife must have been !" said Clara; 



2 80 IVA TER-ANIMALS. 

n but didn't they have anything to eat in 
the dry season ?" 

<4 Not such things as you would like to 
eat," was the reply. " Once they had to 
live on bran, and sometimes they ate 
locusts." 

Symptoms of strong disgust from Clara 
and Edith, which increased when Miss 
Harson added: 

"The natives, in the kindness of their 
hearts, often gave the missionary's children 
a large kind of caterpillar, which they seemed 
to enjoy, and the natives themselves ate 
quantities of them." 

" Well," said Malcolm, making up one of 
his worst faces, " I'm glad / haven't got to 
be a missionary and go to Africa." 

" Yet," replied his governess with a lov- 
ing gaze, " you may live to think that the 
greatest honor that could possibly befall 
you." 



CHAPTER XV. 

SOMETHING ABOUT AFRICA. 

THE idea of his ever becoming a mis- 
sionary quite sobered Malcolm for a 
time, and he wondered if Miss Harson 
really meant it in earnest. 

"I really do," was the smiling reply, 
11 for stranger things than that have hap- 
pened ; and all who are baptized are bound 
to be missionaries, in a certain sense, 
whether they go to Africa or not. We are 
all called upon to be self-denying and to 
work for the good of others ; and there is 
a great deal of such work to be done at 
home. I will tell you something about this 
in a story." 

11 But we haven't had any animals yet, 
Miss Harson," said Edith, wondering what 
this strange order of things meant. 

" Do not be frightened, dear," replied 

281 



282 WA TER-AN1MALS. 

her governess ; " I have no intention of 
telling the story now, and the animals have 
not been forgotten. But first let us see 
how these poor people manage about water. 
A small plant grows in that part of Africa 
having a tuberous root as large as a cocoa- 
nut, and the inside of this root is a mass 
of cellular tissue filled with fluid much like 
that in a young turnip. Owing to the 
depth beneath the soil at which it is found, 
it is generally deliciously cool and refresh- 
ing. Another kind, named 'mokuri/ is 
seen in other parts of the country where 
long-continued heat parches the soil. This 
plant is an herbaceous creeper, and deposits 
underground a number of tubers, some as 
large as a man's head, at spots in a circle 
a yard or more from the stem. The na- 
tives strike the ground with stones on the 
circumference of the circle till, by hearing a 
difference of sound, they know the water- 
bearing tuber to be beneath. They then 
dig down a foot or so and find it. 

" The women often go a long distance 
from home to get water, and they carry the 
shells of ostrich-eggs, instead of pails, to 



SOMETHING ABOUT AFRICA. 283 

put it in. Each woman will tie twenty or 
thirty of these strange water- vessels to her 
back in a net or bag, every shell having a 
hole in it to pour in water, and when it is 
full the hole is stopped with a small bunch 
of grass or straw. When taken home these 
shells are carefully buried in the ground, 
and brought out as occasion requires. " 

"I don't want to go to Africa, then/' said 
Clara, " for I should drink up all their 
water if they have so little." 

" If you could get it," was the laughing 
reply, " I have no doubt that you would, as 
you require two or three glasses of it at a 
meal, with I don't know how many between 
meals ; but these people are cunning enough 
to hide the water which they get with so 
much trouble. The Bushmen, who live in 
the desert, once told a party from a more 
civilized tribe who reached their village 
parched with thirst that they had no water 
and never drank any. They were watched 
night and day, but no water was ever pro- 
duced ; and finally the visitors declared 
that they were not men, and there was 
no use in staying any longer. They prob- 



284 WATER-ANIMALS. 

ably had water all the time hidden under 
the ground." 

This seemed "dreadfully mean" to the 
children, who could not realize how precious 
a little store of water is in a country of 
heat and drought, and how difficult it is to 
be hospitable under such circumstances. 

" Besides," added the young lady, " we 
do not know but that these visitors may 
have been rude in their demands. A mis- 
sionary says: 'I have come into villages 
where, had we acted a domineering part 
and rummaged every hut, we should have 
found nothing; but by sitting down quietly 
and waiting with patience until the villagers 
were led to form a favorable opinion of us, 
a woman would bring out a shell full of 
the precious fluid from I know not where/ " 

"Isn't Africa like a big desert, anyway?" 
asked Malcolm. 

" No, indeed," replied his governess ; 
11 many parts of it are both fertile and beau- 
tiful ; the trees are magnificent, and the 
pasturage, especially in South Africa, plen- 
tiful enough to support large herds of 
cattle. The Boers, or farmers of Dutch 




A BUSHMAN FAMILY. 



286 WATER-ANIMALS, 

descent, are a wealthy class of people, and 
many of them live in quite a luxurious 
manner. Even the desert itself is not all 
desert, as it supports multitudes of both 
small and large animals, and the wild water- 
melon alone covers great tracts of it." 

"I never heard of wild watermelons/' 
said Clara: "do they taste like ours?" 

"I do not suppose that they are quite 
the same, dear, and some of them are 
bitter and not eatable at all. But want of 
rain interferes very much with the supply, 
while an unusually wet season makes it so 
abundant that there is a feast for all. Then 
animals of every sort and name, including 
man, rejoice in the rich supply. The ele- 
phant, true lord of the forest, revels in this 
fruit, and so do the different species of 
rhinoceros, although naturally so diverse 
in their choice of pasturage. The various 
kinds of antelopes feed on them with equal 
avidity, and lions, hyenas, jackals and mice 
all seem to know and appreciate the common 
blessing. The natives select them by strik- 
ing one melon after another with a hatchet, 
and applying the tongue to the gashes. 



SOMETHING ABOUT AFRICA. 2 87 

They thus readily distinguish between the 
bitter and the sweet." 

" I'm glad we don't have any bitter water- 
melons," said Edith, " because it wouldn't 
be nice to have people make holes in 'em 
and taste 'em before they came here." 

Miss Harson smiled at her earnestness 
as she replied : 

" A great many things, dear, are not 
\ nice ' which have to be borne by the 
devoted missionaries in a foreign country. 
But it really is nice that so much pleasant 
food, free to all, can be found in the desert. 
Many other fruits grow in Africa, but we 
can get very little idea of their taste from 
the descriptions of them." 

" I suppose the houses are like the little 
huts in the pictures," said Clara: " some 
of them look quite pleasant among the 
trees." 

" Yes, and the missionary was sometimes 
glad to exchange his tent for one of them. 
1 If we slept in the tent in some villages/ he 
says, ' the mice ran over our faces and dis- 
turbed our sleep, or hungry prowling dogs 
would eat our shoes and leave only the soles. 



288 WATER-ANIMALS. 

When they were guilty of this and other 
misdemeanors, we got the loan of a hut. 
The best sort of Makolo hut consists of 
three circular walls with small holes for 
doors, each similar to that in a dog-house, 
and it is necessary to bend down the body 
to get in, even when on all fours. The 
roof is formed of reeds or straight sticks, 
in shape like a Chinaman's hat, bound 
firmly together with circular bands, which 
are lashed with the strong inner bark of 
the mimosa tree. When all prepared ex- 
cept the thatch, it is lifted on to the circular 
wall, the rim resting on a circle of poles, 
between each of which the third wall is 
built. The roof is thatched with fine grass 
and sewed with the same material as the 
lashings, and as it projects far beyond the 
walls and reaches within four feet of the 
ground, the shade is the best to be found 
in the country. These huts are very cool 
in the hottest day, but are close and de- 
ficient in ventilation by night. The bed is 
a mat of rushes sewed together with twine, 
and the hip-bone soon becomes sore on the 
hard flat surface/ M 



SOMETHING ABOUT AFRICA. 289 

" That's much nicer than the Eskimo 
houses," said Malcolm, "but I should like 
their fur bags better to sleep in." 

11 Not in the climate of Africa," replied 
his governess; "the close huts must be bad 
enough there, yet such a hard bed is cer- 
tainly not inviting. The natives do not 
mind it, as they know nothing better, but it 
adds very much to the discomfort of mis- 
sionary life. The style of living under the 
Equator is, of course, entirely different 
from that of the Arctic regions, and while 
our Eskimo friends make animated bundles 
of themselves to keep out the cold, their 
African brothers wear scarcely any clothing 
at all." 

"Their dresses are very short," said 
Edith, looking at the pictures, "and they 
don't come up high enough at the top." 

"Some of them," added her sister," have 
only got on the middle of a dress. " 

Malcolm thought that the men were only 
"a bunch of bare arms and le^s." 

"When they become Christians," said 
Miss Harson, " they are willing to dress 
like civilized beings, but in a heathen state 

19 



29O WATER-ANIMALS. 

they do not even know what a looking-glass 
means. When one appears for the first time 
in a place, their curiosity is unbounded, and 
frequent calls are made upon the owner of 
such a singular article. 'They came fre- 
quently/ says the missionary, 'and asked 
for the looking-glass, and the remarks they 
made — while I was engaged in reading, and 
apparently not attending to them — on first 
seeing themselves therein were amusingly 
ridiculous: "Is that me?" "What a big 
mouth I have !" " My ears are as big as 
pumpkin-leaves." " I have no chin at all." 
Or, " I would have been pretty, but am 
spoiled by these high cheek-bones." " See 
how my head shoots up in the middle," 
laughing vociferously all the time at their 
own jokes. They readily perceive any de- 
fect in each other, and give nicknames ac- 
cordingly. One man came alone to have a 
quiet gaze at his own features once when 
he thought I was asleep : after twisting his 
mouth about in various directions, he re- 
marked to himself, " People say I am ugly, 
and how very ugly I am, indeed !" ' " 
"What very funny people!" exclaimed 




AFRICANS 



292 WATER-ANIMALS. 

Edith. Malcolm and Clara were equally 
amused by this account. 

"They have many peculiar ideas/' said 
their governess, "and among them is a 
great contempt for shedding tears on any 
occasion whatever. We can realize, there- 
fore, the power of God's word among these 
people when we read such a testimony as 
this : ' Baba, a mighty hunter who was ulti- 
mately killed by a rhinoceros, sat listening 
to the gospel in the church at Kuruman, 
and the gracious words of Christ, made to 
touch his heart evidently by the Holy Spirit, 
melted him into tears ; I have seen him and 
others sink down to the ground weeping. 
When Baba was lying mangled by the fu- 
rious beast which tore him off his horse, he 
shed no tear, but quietly prayed as long as 
he was conscious.' " 



CHAPTER XVI. 

A CURIOUS WATER-LILY. 

THERE were numerous pictures of Af- 
rican scenery in the books which Miss 
Harson had selected from the library, and 
the children were very much surprised to 
find such attractive-looking places in the 
Dark Continent. The river-banks were 
often charming, and the great shade-trees 
seemed thick enough to keep out the 
hottest sun. 

"The Luambye River/' said the young 
lady, u is described as a magnificent one, 
often more than a mile broad, and adorned 
with many islands of from three to five 
miles in length. Both islands and banks 
are covered with forest, and most of the 
trees on the brink of the water send down 
roots from their branches, like the banyan. 
The islands at a little distance seem great 
rounded masses of sylvan vegetation re- 

293 



294 WATER-ANIMALS. 

dining on the bosom of the glorious stream. 
The beauty of the scenery of some of the 
islands is greatly increased by the date 
palm, with its gracefully-curved fronds and 
refreshing light-green color, near the bot- 
tom of the picture, and the lofty palmyra 
towering far above and casting its feathery 
foliage against a cloudless sky. Many 
rapids and cataracts make it still more pict- 
uresque, but also very dangerous, as the 
canoes then have to be taken out of the 
water and carried by land to a safer place. 
In this and other African rivers a curious 
kind of water-lily is found, of an enormous 
size and looking very much like this. ,, 

When the children saw the " water-lily " 
in the book they burst into peals of merri- 
ment. Such an absurd, ungainly-looking 
animal, or, rather, several of them, lying 
flat on the water just like lily-pads, and 
some of them well under it, showing only 
dark shadows, while a baby of gigantic 
size, with a very silly expression, was 
perched on its mother's body and sailing 
along with the greatest complacency ! 

"They are handsome creatures," said 



A CURIOUS WATER-LILY. 295 

Malcolm, presently ; " their heads are 
nearly as long as their bodies. " 

" Not quite so bad as that," was the re- 
ply, " for the larger species are fourteen 
feet long, while the head is but three feet. 
This ugly head looks, as you see, like a 
long box. The legs are very short in pro- 
portion — a peculiarity of all water-animals 
— and they have four toes, all of which 
touch the ground in walking. Some of 
them, you see, are collected in a group on 
the bank, for they are land-animals as well, 
although apparently more at home in the 
water ; and during the heat of the day the 
hippopotamus is to be found in the middle 
of the stream quite under water, only ris- 
ing from time to time to breathe. Various 
splashes and snorts proclaim its presence 
even when it is invisible, and it can remain 
under water longer than any other animal. 
Yet it has sometimes been found asleep in 
the forests several miles away from the 
water." 

"It's such an immense creature to be in 
the water at all,"said Clara, " that I wonder 
it doesn't sink. It's ever so much larger 



296 WATER-ANIMALS. 

than a polar bear, and I shouldn't think it 
could swim a bit." 

" It is a very accomplished swimmer, and 
quite the lord of the African rivers : its only- 
home is in these rivers, as it is not found in 
any other country. Yet, strange as it 
seems, it lives almost entirely on grass and 
weeds." 

"And doesn't it eat the fishes?" asked 
Edith. 

" No, dear," replied her governess ; " I 
believe that the hippopotamus has never 
been known to take any animal food. It 
has immense eye-teeth, which are curved 
in such a way that the upper ones fit inside 
the lower, the surfaces that touch each other 
being gradually worn flat. These tusks — 
the lower ones especially — are sometimes 
very large, and have been known to weigh 
as much as seventeen pounds. The ivory 
is quite valuable, and is often used in man- 
ufacturing artificial teeth. The tusks are 
said to leave their trace in the rank herb- 
age by the river-banks, the ground in many 
places looking as if gone over with a har- 
row ; they are also employed for tearing up 



298 WATER-ANIMALS. 

aquatic weeds, on which the animals largely 
depend for food." 

"It seems so queer, Miss Harson," said 
Malcolm, " that all the biggest animals only 
eat grass and such things. There's the 
elephant, you know, and the cow and the 
ox and all the rest of them." 

" It is a good provision for the safety of 
other animals," was the reply, "as, if these 
huge creatures happened to be carnivorous, 
they would soon clear the smaller ones 
from the face of the earth. The hippopot- 
amus, it seems, does not eat in the day- 
time, but large herds collect in still, deep 
water, and the deep furrows they make in 
ascending the banks to graze during the 
night are everywhere apparent. They are 
guided back to the water by the scent ; but 
a long-continued pouring rain makes it 
impossible for them to perceive by that 
means in which direction the river lies, 
and they are found bewildered on the 
land. The hunters take advantage of their 
helplessness on these occasions to kill 
them." 

"They don't look like water-animals," 



A CURIOUS WATER-LILY. 299 

said Clara ; u I should think they belonged 
on land." 

"The polar bear does not look like a 
water-animal," replied her governess, "yet 
he is better off than the hippopotamus, as 
he can also get along very well on land, 
or rather on ice. 'It is impossible to judge 
of the number in a herd/ says a traveler, 
\ for they are almost always hidden beneath 
the water ; but, as they require to come up 
every few minutes to breathe, when there 
is a constant succession of heads thrown 
up, then the herd is supposed to be large. 
They love a still reach of the stream, as in 
the more rapid parts of the channel they 
are floated down so quickly that much 
exertion is required in swimming up again 
to regain the distance lost. Such constant 
exertion disturbs them in their nap. They 
prefer to remain by day in a drowsy, yawn- 
ing state, and, though their eyes are open, 
they take little notice of things at a dis- 
tance. The males utter a loud succession 
of snorting grunts which may be heard a 
mile off. The canoe in which I was sitting, 
in passing over a wounded one elicited a 



300 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

distinct grunting, though the animal lay 
entirely under water. 

" * The young, when very little, take their 
stand on the neck of the mother, and the 
small head, rising above the large, comes 
first to the surface. The mother, knowing 
the more urgent need of her calf, comes 
more frequently to the surface when it is 
in her care. But in the rivers of Londa, 
where they are much in danger of being 
shot, even the hippopotamus gains wit by 
experience ; for while those in the Zambesi 
put up their heads openly to blow, the 
former keep their noses among water- 
plants, and breathe so quietly that one 
would not dream of their existence in the 
river except by footprints on the banks/ r 

"Aren't they dangerous in the water/' 
asked Malcolm, " when they get among the 
canoes?" 

" Sometimes, when they wish to get to 
the surface and a canoe is in the way. 
One hippopotamus struck a boat with her 
head and nearly overturned it, one half 
being lifted quite out of the water. One 
man was tilted out into the river, but for- 



302 WATER-ANIMALS, 

tunately the boat was very near the shore, 
and all managed to scramble upon dry 
land. The animal gazed after the canoe, 
as if trying to find out how much mischief 
she had done, and it was supposed that she 
was avenging the death of her little one, 
whom the men had speared the day before. 
* This is so unusual an occurrence/ says the 
writer, 'when the precaution is taken to 
coast along the shore, that my men ex- 
claimed, " Is the beast mad ?" There were 
eight of us in the canoe at the time, and 
the shake it received shows the immense 
power of this animal in the water/ ' 

" I should think it would have been mad," 
exclaimed Clara, pitying the poor mother, 
" after seeing its child killed. And I sup- 
pose that if the hippopotamus didn't like 
grass better, it would have eaten the 
men/' 

" Quite likely, Clara, if it had caught 
them ; yet it is not at all probable that the 
little one was killed out of cruelty, but for 
use. The meat, which is said to taste like 
pork, is considered good food by the na- 
tives ; and, besides this, they boil down the 



A CURIOUS WATER-LILY. 303 

fat taken from the layers between the ribs. 
It is never thicker than oil in such a warm 
climate, but it has a peculiarity of keeping 
fresh for many years. White men do not 
find it so agreeable as the natives do, as 
they say it has a flavor of train oil, but 
some travelers consider hippopotamus bacon 
quite a delicacy. The fashion is to cut it 
in narrow strips and roast it, when, says 
one who has tried it, it is ' hard and tough 
as so much rope/ The meat is very 
fibrous, being a mere tissue of sinews/' 

"/ don't believe it's nice," said Edith, 
with as much earnestness as though she 
expected an invitation to feast on hippo- 
potamus. 

" No," replied her governess with a smile, 
" I have no idea that it is, and where it is 
eaten good meat is very scarce. But the 
hippopotamus, when dead, is a very useful 
animal. Its skin, which is two inches 
thick, makes excellent handles for knives 
and workmen's tools, besides being good 
for a variety of purposes ; while its flesh 
and fat and tusks are all valuable." 

" Miss Harson," asked Clara, in a puzzled 



304 WATER-ANIMALS. 

tone, " what color are hippopotamuses? In 
the pictures some look white and others 
quite dark/' 

" Their color, as generally described, is 
very peculiar, having a reddish tinge when 
they first come out of the water. One 
traveler describes them as of * a dark, 
fleshy red, almost like raw meat, marked 
irregularly with large black spots. In the 
sunshine their damp bodies assume quite 
a bluish-gray hue/ Another one says that 
1 the males appear of a dark color, the 
females of a yellowish-brown/ " 

" The little ones must be comical objects," 
said Malcolm. 

"They are," replied the young lady, 
laughing- at the recollection ; " I saw one 
some years ago on exhibition, and it was a 
most absurd-looking animal. This 'baby' 
was said to be about two years old, and it 
was just the color of a pig, with the pink 
skin showing through. Its head was like a 
box, and it had a stupid, wooden-y kind of 
look that was very funny." 

" Was it in a cage ?" asked Edith. 

" Oh no, dear : it could not have lived in 



306 WATER-AJS/IMALS. 

a cage. There was a large tank of water 
for it to splash about in, and when it was 
not doing this it stood at the head of the 
steps leading down to it or walked around 
among the visitors. They were not at all 
afraid of it, as it was very peaceably in- 
clined, and never did any more mischief 
than to upset a baby or two when the little 
things got in its way. It was quite playful, 
and very fond of company." 

" Oh, Miss Harson ! what became of it ?" 
The three children would have liked nothing 
better than to go in pursuit of that young 
hippopotamus. 

"I think it died," was the reply; "and it 
would be very difficult to keep such an an- 
imal alive in a state of captivity. Think 
of the vast expanse of water to which it is 
accustomed and where it spends most of 
its time lolling about in a listless, dreamy 
manner. The hippopotamus is formed, in 
some respects, for just such a life, and the 
flexible nostrils can be tightly closed by 
muscular exertion when the animal is under 
water, thus preventing any from getting in. 
This is sometimes the only part seen above 



A CURIOUS WATER-LILY. 307 

water. When the animal 'blows' there is 
a waterspout about three feet high." 

"They can't be very easy to kill, with 
that thick skin/' said Malcolm: "how do 
the natives manage it, Miss Harson ?" 

"They use harpoons and spears; and 
sometimes a native will go fearlessly into 
the water after a hippopotamus, armed only 
with a large knife. Hunters shoot it ; but 
'when, out of a herd of these animals in a 
river, one has been wounded, the rest are 
far more wary in coming to the surface ; 
and should the wound have been fatal, the 
carcass does not rise for an hour, but drifts 
down the stream/ " 

"It is nice that they don't want to kill 
people," said Clara, "as they are so big 
and strong; it doesn't matter so much 
about their being ugly." 

"I am afraid, dear," replied her govern- 
ess, "that 1 shall have to upset your pleas- 
ant idea of the hippopotamus. It does 
not eat people, but a naturalist says he is 
disposed to think the hippopotamus the 
most dangerous to an unarmed man of all 
the large mammalia of South Africa. One 



308 WATER-ANIMALS. 

reason of this is that the huge animal can- 
not endure the sight of anything to which 
it is not accustomed or which takes it by 
surprise. Let it come upon a horse, an ox, 
a porcupine, a log of wood, or even a flut- 
tering garment suddenly crossing its path, 
and it will fly upon any of them with re- 
lentless fury; but let such object be with- 
drawn betimes from view, and the brute in 
an instant will forget all about it and go on 
its way entirely undisturbed. Although in 
some cases it may happen that an unpro- 
tected man may elude the attack of a lion, 
a buffalo or a leopard, except when they 
have been provoked, he cannot indulge the 
hope of escaping the violence of a hippo- 
potamus that has once got him within 
reach of its power." 

" Then it is ugly outside and inside too," 
said Edith in great disgust, " and I thought 
before that it was just homely and nice." 

" ' Not pretty, but good/ " added her 
brother ; " but now there's nothing nice 
about it — eh, Edie ? It doesrit look much 
like a pet." 

" Clara," said Miss Harson presently, " I 



A CURIOUS WATER-LILY. 309 

wish you to find the fifteenth verse of the 
fortieth chapter of Job, and read from that 
verse to the end." 

Clara read very reverently the following 
verses : 

" Behold now behemoth, which I made 
with thee ; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo, 
now, his strength is in his loins, and his 
force is in the navel of his belly. He mov- 
eth his tail like a cedar : the sinews of his 
stones are wrapped together. His bones 
are as strong pieces of brass ; his bones are 
like bars of iron. He is the chief of the 
ways of God : he that made him can make 
his sword to approach unto him. Surely 
the mountains bring him forth food, where 
all the beasts of the field play. He lieth 
under the shady trees, in the covert of the 
reed and fens. The shady trees cover him 
with their shadow ; the willows of the brook 
compass him about. Behold, he drinketh up 
a river, and hasteth not : he trusteth that he 
can draw up Jordan into his mouth. He 
taketh it with his eyes : his nose pierceth 
through snares."* 

* See also Revised Version. 



3 1 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

" This/' said Miss Harson, " is the only 
mention made in the Bible of the hippo- 
potamus, which answers in so many ways 
to the description of ' behemoth/ Its eat- 
ing grass like an ox applies exactly, as the 
hippopotamus feeds like ordinary cattle, 
and, like them, it will get into a grain-field 
whenever it has a chance, and do a great 
deal of damage. In order to supply its 
huge, massive body with nourishment it 
consumes vast quantities of food, as indeed 
may be inferred from the structure of its 
mouth and jaws. The mouth is enormously 
broad and shovel- shaped, so as to take in a 
large quantity of food at once, and the 
gape is so wide that when the animal opens 
its jaws to their full extent it seems to split 
its head into two nearly equal portions. 
This great mobility of jaw is assisted by 
the peculiar form of the gape, which takes 
a sudden turn upward and reaches almost 
to the eyes. This description is illustrated 
in various pictures in books of travel in 
Africa, which show the animal with open 
mouth/' 

" What a dreadful mouth it must be !" 



A CURIOUS WATER-LILY. 



311 



said Malcolm; "I don't see how people 
dare to hunt such an animal/' 

" Man's power over the beasts of the 
field has continued to this day," replied the 




HIPPOPOTAMUS. 



young lady, " although he sometimes falls a 
victim to their ferocity. Unless the hippo- 
potamus is hunted or trapped, food becomes 
scarce in his neighborhood, for, besides 
eating so enormously, he spoils as much as 
he eats by the trampling of his heavy feet. 



312 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

Owing to the width of the animal, the feet 
are placed very far apart, and the conse- 
quence is that the hippopotamus makes a 
double path, the feet of each side trampling 
down the herbage and causing the track 
to look like double ruts, with an elevated 
ridge between them." 

" And no one can say, ' Go and drive the 
hippopotamus out/ I suppose," said Clara, 
" as they tell people here to drive the cows 
out." 

"We can be quite sure that no one 
would be found to do it," was the laughing 
reply; "although one of the old fables 
about behemoth was that he devoured 
daily the herbage of a thousand hills, and 
that to prevent the destruction of all grow- 
ing things the herbage was miraculously 
renewed every night. 

" The sacred writer says that ' he lieth 
under the shady trees, in the covert of the 
reeds and fens ;' and he is particularly fond 
of the little islands in the river Nile which 
are full of reeds and papyrus, and also of 
beautiful white lotus-flowers, among which 
the ugly hippopotamus looks very much 



A CURIOUS WATER-LILY. 313 

out of place. Being perfectly at home in 
the water, he does not in the least mind the 
annual rising of the river, when whole 
villages are swept away and the country 
left desolate : all he cares for is to find 
enough to eat, and floods do not make him 
at all uneasy." 

" Miss Harson," asked Edith, in a very 
much puzzled tone, " what does it mean 
about ' his nose pierceth through snares ' ?" 

" I do not wonder that you ask, dear, for 
it sounds strangely enough; but it only- 
means that the animal detects snares, and is 
not easily taken in anything like a trap.* 
1 Now this faculty of detecting snares,' says 
a naturalist, ' is one of the chief character- 
istics of the hippopotamus when it lives 
near places inhabited by mankind, who are 
always doing their best to destroy it. In 
the first place, its body gives them an 
almost unlimited supply of flesh, the fat 
is very highly valued for many purposes, 
the teeth are sold to the ivory-dealers 
and the hide is cut up into whips or u khoor- 
bashes." 

* But see Revised Version. 



314 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

"'Not content with hunting the hippo- 
potamus, the natives contrive various traps, 
either pitfalls or drop-traps. The former 
are simply pits dug in the path of the 
animal, covered with sticks and reeds, and 
having at the bottom a sharp stake, on 
which the victim is impaled, and so effectu- 
ally prevented from escaping or damaging 
the pit by its struggles. 

" ' The drop-trap is a log of wood weighted 
with stones, and having at one end an iron 
spike, which is sometimes poisoned. The 
path which the animal takes is watched, a 
conveniently overhanging branch is selected, 
and from that branch the cruel spear is sus- 
pended by a catch or trigger exactly over 
the centre of the path. One end of the 
trigger supports the spear, and to the 
other is attached a rope, which is brought 
across the path in such a way that when 
touched it releases the spear, which is driv- 
en deeply into the animal's back. If well 
hung, the spear-blade divides the spine, 
and the wounded animal falls on the spot; 
but even if it should miss a vital part, the 
poison soon does its fatal work. 



A CURIOUS WATER-LILY. 315 

" ' In consequence of the continual per- 
secution to which it is subjected the hippo- 
potamus becomes exceedingly wary, and, 
huge, clumsy and blundering as it looks, is 
clever enough to detect either a pitfall or a 
drop-trap that has not been contrived with 
especial care. An old and experienced 
hippopotamus becomes so wary that he 
will be suspicious even of a bent twig, and, 
rather than venture across it, will leave the 
path, force for himself a roundabout pas- 
sage, and return to the path beyond the 
object that alarmed him.' " 

"He must be hard to catch," said Mal- 
colm. 

"Yes," replied his governess; " the hip- 
popotamus has more intellect than he is 
generally credited with ; but he is quite dis- 
posed to let his enemies alone if they do 
not begin the attack." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE RIGHT KIND OF HELP, 

NOW," said Miss Harson, "as Africa 
always makes Malcolm think of 
Bishop Heber's beautiful missionary hymn, 
I will finish our hippopotamus talk with a 
story of some missionary work that was 
done at home." 

This was a delightful prospect to the little 
audience, but, to be quite sure that they 
were getting what they wanted most, the 
question was asked: "Your own story, 
Miss Harson ?" 

"Yes, this is all my own." 

Miss Harson then proceeded with her 
story, which she called 

A MISSIONARY BOAT. 

The Mitchells had been comfortably set- 
tled in their country-house for a month or 
so, and, as they were all boys except papa 

316 



THE RIGHT KIND OF HELP. 317 

and mamma, this country home was a great 
thing for them. It was so unexpected, too, 
and actually came to them — as so few 
pleasant things do come — because of the 
hard times. 

It happened in this way : Mr. Waite, who 
owned the place, was an old friend, and, as 
it had not been rented for two years, he 
told Mr. Mitchell that his boys might as 
well have the comfort of it, and he was 
welcome to occupy it all summer, rent free. 
The family sometimes had a week or two 
of country-life with some cousins in New 
Hampshire, but the remainder of the year 
was spent in the city, where Mr. Mitchell 
had to work very steadily as bookkeeper in 
a bank, and could allow them few luxuries. 
But the boys were brought up as Christian 
gentlemen, and were early taught to make 
the best of things. They were so happy 
and affectionate with each other that they 
never thought of envying their richer com- 
panions, while father and mother were both 
loved and reverenced. A place in the 
country all their own seemed at first almost 
too good to be true, and for a week or two 



3 1 8 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

they were constantly exploring and discov- 
ering fresh delights. 

A pond, a grove of chestnut trees, a hut 
for camping out, were all rejoiced over in 
turn, but the pond, that was almost a lake 
and was beautifully shaded with willows 
and alders and drooping vines, was their 
great delight. Such a place for bathing 
on warm days, such a place for swimming, 
and, if they only had a boat, such a place 
for rowing ! But there was no boat, and 
how to get one became the subject of much 
discussion in the family. 

Papa and mamma had taken it in hand ; 
they felt that rowing, under proper circum- 
stances, would be good exercise for the 
boys and would add much to their enjoy- 
ment. So banks were produced and their 
contents counted — generally two or three 
times over, in the hope of making more of 
them ; wonderful offers of work at exorbi- 
tant wages were made to Mr. Mitchell by 
his three sons — Teddy being too small to 
be of any use — and they almost appeared 
to think that they could help mamma with 
her sewing at the same rates, while she 



THE RIGHT KIND OF HELP. 319 

laughed heartily at the ridiculous proposi- 
tions that were made. 

" Now, boys," said Mrs. Mitchell in her 
pleasant way, " we are going to have a 
boat if we can get one by proper means ; 
but we must take care not to let it become 
one of the ' inordinate affections ' from 
which we pray to be delivered, nor must 
we let the want of it lessen our gratitude 
for the many blessings we already enjoy. 
We certainly did not expect to have a 
country-house ; but no sooner do we get 
that than we immediately cry out for a 
boat." 

"All right, little mother," replied "Ma- 
jor/' with such a "bear's hug" as only a 
fourteen-year-old boy can give, "we won't 
forget what you say. But you see if we 
don't have the boat!" 

Mamma laughed, and the boys went off 
as usual under the loving direction of their 
elder, taking their way to the pond, as 
though a contemplation of its pebbly bot- 
tom might in some way lead to the appear- 
ance of a boat upon its surface. 

" If Uncle Jack comes," suggested Harry, 



320 WATER-ANIMALS. 

"and mamma expects him, you know, next 
month — he- will certainly give us the boat." 

"I shouldn't like that," replied Major; 
" I think it would be a great deal nicer and 
more manly to get it ourselves. And I, 
for one, should never tell Uncle Jack that 
we wanted a boat." 

"Oh, but he'd find it out," cried Phil; 
"he always does find out just what people 
want. You know he guessed about my 
kite." 

" Not a very difficult thing," thought his 
elder brothers as they remembered that this 
had been almost Phil's first word in the 
morning and the last at night. But they 
kindly refrained from telling him so, for, as 
Phil himself would have said, he was " only 
a little boy then." It was more than a 
year ago. 

"We'll get the boat ourselves," continued 
Major, "and won't we have grand times 
then? What shall we name it, boys?" 

Everything that a boat could be named 
was suggested, and the brothers sat regu- 
larly down and had such an animated dis- 
cussion over it that it seemed rather funny 



THE RIGHT KIND OF HELP. 32 1 

to think there really was no boat in exist- 
ence yet. 

It happened that a boat was also wanted 
just then in another part of the world and 
for quite a different purpose, and the next 
Sunday afternoon Mrs. Mitchell, who was 
seated on the shady piazza with a religious 
paper in her hand, said : 

" Boys, here is something for you. Bishop 

P of Africa has written a letter to the 

children, asking them to help him get a 
boat in which he can travel up and down 
the coast. He says it is really a must-kave y 
for it is a rare thing for a boat to come to 
Cape Mount, and it would save both time 
and money. For want of it the mission- 
aries are sometimes delayed a month from 
their work ; and the bishop says he has 
been asked as much as a hundred dollars 
for a boat to convey him from Monrovia to 
Cape Mount. There are places to which 
he must go for just one day's work, and 
which he cannot reach without losing from 
two to four or five weeks. A little ocean- 
yacht that will carry ten tons, and that 
ought not to cost over a thousand dollars, 
21 



322 WATER-ANIMALS. 

will do. How about our boat in the face 
of this greater need ?" 

At first the boys groaned, this seemed 
such a complete extinguisher on their little 
craft, which they had already named the 
"Firefly," and which was just as hard to 
give up as if they had really owned it. 
But then how could the bishop's work get 
on unless all who knew of it helped him to 
get a boat ? 

Major spoke first : 

" He shall have it, mother," looking up 
with a bright smile, as if ashamed of his 
momentary hesitation. "Ten dollars will 
be something toward it." And he walked 
rather hastily to the end of the piazza. 

His father's voice at his shoulder whis- 
pered : 

" Remember, my son, the words of David: 
' Neither will I offer burnt-offerings unto 
the Lord my God of that which doth cost 
me nothing/ " 

" Yes, papa," was the reply, " and we are 
going to work just as hard for the bishop's 
boat as we would for our own." 

"Indee4 we will/' chimed in Harry and 



THE RIGHT KIND OF HELP. 323 

Phil, after the first rush of disappointment. 
And as Mr. and* Mrs. Mitchell watched the 
bright young faces they could not help 
thinking that a few more such earnest 
workers would soon accomplish what the 
good bishop desired. 

The boys were laying out tasks for the 
coming week by which they expected to 
earn money for the missionary boat, when 
mamma asked them if they would not like 
to have a little talk about Africa, where 

Bishop P was working and where 

many good men had laid down their lives 
in the service of their Lord. Mrs. Mit- 
chell knew how to make these "talks" very 
attractive, and the little group sat there 
into the twilight hearing about the mis- 
sionaries who had worked for God in that 
benighted country. 

Up rose three young heroes with the 
morning sun, and fell very vigorously to 
putting the home-lawn in order. Mamma 
encouraged them with smiles from the win- 
dow of her sewing-room, and had a liberal 
supply of gingerbread in readiness for 
their eleven-o'clock luncheon. 



3 24 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

In the afternoon they went, as usual, to 
bathe in their beloved pond, and Harry ex- 
claimed with a sigh, 

" I don't see the Firefly here any longer." 

" The Firefly," said Major, grandly, " has 
been promoted. She has spread her sails 
for the African coast, and now floats ma- 
jestically on the ocean waves." 

The young orator forgot that the Firefly 
never had any sails, as it was a rowboat; 
but this is not to be wondered at, as he 
also forgot that it never had an existence. 
He deeply lamented his imaginary boat, 
but he tried to think of the hard-working- 
bishop and the comfort he would take in 
the yacht, which Major already saw sailing 
up and down the coast of Africa, doing its 
good work. 

The days went on, full of work and 
happiness ; the boys were allowed to help 
a neighboring farmer with his hay-harvest, 
and their earnings had now reached quite 
a respectable sum. The bishop's boat was 
a frequent subject of conversation, and they 
wondered when they might venture to send 
their contribution ; but not while work 



THE RIGHT KIND OF HELP, 325 

lasted certainly, and the lads toiled away 
like a colony of beavers. 

"I am afraid," said Mr. Mitchell one 
evening to his wife, " that the boys are go- 
ing to have a disappointment, after all. I 
see in the Spirit of Missions that the 
bishop's yacht is already provided for, a 
generous Southern congregation having 
offered to give the whole sum if neces- 
sary. ,, 

" We ought to be glad, of course," was 
the smiling reply, "and yet I should have 
liked a share in the bishop's boat; the boys 
too, after all their work." 

"I wonder what they will do about it?" 
continued Mr. Mitchell. 

"We shall see," replied his wife. 

The younger boys received the news 
with subdued delight: their beloved Firefly, 
they thought, would now be restored to 
them. 

But Major counted out the savings, which 
had now rolled up to the sum of twenty-five 
dollars, and said very gravely, 

"This money is not ours, but Bishop 
P 's. We earned it for him, and I 



3 26 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

think it would be dishonest to take it back 
again." 

" Bravo, Major!" exclaimed his father; 
while the mothers eyes were moist. 

Harry and Phil felt quite ashamed of 
their first thought and very proud of their 
brother, and the little pile was made over 
at once to papa, to be changed into suitable 
shape for transportation to Africa. 

Then "Uncle Jack" came. 

He was Mrs. Mitchell's younger brother, 
always full of life and spirits and ready to 
enter into all his nephews' pleasures. No 
wonder, therefore, that he was such a 
favorite with them. 

" Why haven't these boys a boat?" asked 
this same Uncle Jack quite suddenly one 
day. " It's just what they need on that nice 
large pond, and it would do more for them 
in the way of muscles and tan than anything 
else you could give them." 

He was rather surprised at the effect of 
his words, for the three boys looked as 
guilty as though they had been doing some- 
thing wrong, while Phil could scarcely help 
smiling to think how clever Uncle Jack was 



THE RIGHT KIND OF HELP. 327 

at guessing, after all. Mrs. Mitchell began 
to talk of something else, and when the 
boys were out of hearing she told her 
brother the story of the boat. 

"The dear little fellows!" exclaimed Un- 
cle Jack with suspicious-looking eyes. 
"That really shames me beyond endur- 
ance. I shall send a contribution to Africa 
instantly, as the bishop probably needs 
plenty of things besides a yacht ; and the 
boys shall have their boat too. ,, 

The young Mitchells had not lifted their 
eyes to anything grander than a second- 
hand rowboat, but they had, one fine day, a 
great surprise in the appearance of a lovely 
new one that had mysteriously found its way 
to the pond, and looked as though it had 
always belonged there. It was painted 
olive-green with red trimmings, and on the 
bow, in bright red letters, was the magic 
name "Firefly." 

"That is the loveliest story yet," was the 
commendation that greeted Miss Harson. 
But what pleased her still better was to see 
that her little charges were as eager to do 



328 WATER-ANIMALS. 

missionary work of this kind as the Mit- 
chells had been ; and if there had only 
been a boat wanted somewhere, they would 
have worked just as hard for it. But noth- 
ing seemed quite so interesting to work for 
as a boat. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

A PLEASANT DISCOVERY. 

MEANWHILE, what had become of 
Sim Jute ? No one seemed to know, 
for, as Malcolm said, Sim and his mother 
and the white-headed baby had all gone off 
together when the ice melted on the pond 
and a coffee-house for skaters was no long- 
er needed. They went off so early one 
March morning that no one even knew 
they were going until they had gone, and 
their friends at Elmridge felt quite hurt 
that they had not been told of their inten- 
tion. 

Mr. Kyle came home one day with the 
exciting intelligence that he had seen Sim 
among a group of newsboys selling papers, 
but on catching sight of Mr. Kyle he was 
off like a flash, leaving no clue to his 
whereabouts. It seemed very sad, just as 

329 



3 3° WA TER-ANIMALS. 

he had begun to care for better things, that 
he should avoid his most faithful friends in 
this way ; but Miss Harson said that she 
would not give Sim up yet, and that she 
still hoped to find him. 

"I am afraid," said Clara, "that he has 
got bad again, and that he won't want us 
to find him. I wish he hadn't run away." 

"I suppose he thought that there was 
nothing for him to do here now," replied 
her governess, "and perhaps he had good 
reasons for going as he did. We will at 
least try not to judge him until we know 
the truth.' ' 

It was some time before any such oppor- 
tunity occurred, but it came at last. 

Miss Harson had gone to the city to 
spend the day in making some necessary 
purchases, and there, in a down-town street, 
gazing into a picture-window, she saw the 
very boy who had occupied so many of 
her thoughts. She knew the back of Sim's 
head — which was all she could see — in a 
moment, and before he had time to recog- 
nize the young lady her hand was on his 
shoulder and he was completely caught. 



A PLEASANT DISCOVERY. 33 1 

No transgressor could look more startled 
at the appearance of a policeman than did 
Sim at sight of Miss Harson. Yet he was 
evidently pleased too, but it was difficult 
to say which feeling was uppermost. 

"I did't want you to find me yet," he 
said, very frankly, "and that is why I run 
away from Mr. Kyle the day he seen me." 

Sim had not given much attention to 
grammar yet, but the young lady noticed 
with pleasure that he looked neat and 
clean and was comfortably dressed. His 
face too had a more straightforward, manly 
look than it used to wear, and it was not 
easy to believe that he had returned to 
evil ways. 

11 Miss Harson," said Sim, after a moment 
of hesitation, " will you come and see my 
mother? It's near by here, and, though we 
ain't got much of a place, it ain't very 
bad." 

The young lady went gladly, and when 
they reached the spot she was most agree- 
ably surprised. The neatest of little tem- 
perance coffee-houses was flourishing under 
Mrs. Jute's supervision, and that worthy 



332 WATER-ANIMALS. 

woman herself almost had her arms round 
her visitor in her delight at seeing her; 
she got her into a chair in the neat little 
room at the back and had a cup of coffee 
in her hands, all in a moment. 

Miss Harson laughed at these summary 
measures as she said : 

" Really, Mrs. Jute, I ought not to stay, 
even to drink this nice coffee ; but if you 
will promise to be more communicative 
than Sim has been, and tell me why you 
made that sudden flitting, I shall be glad to 
listen." 

Mrs. Jute made a pretence of frowning 
at Sim — not succeeding very well, however, 
as he was evidently the apple of her eye — 
and, turning to the young lady, she replied : 

" It's just this way, Miss Harson : that 
boy's too close-mouthed to live. There 
wasn't nothing more to do at Long Pond, 
and Sim was bent on comin' to New York 
and tryin' his luck at papers or 'most any- 
thin'. But he didn't want any of you fine 
folks that had been so good to him to know 
until we'd got to be respectable-like." 

Miss Harson glanced kindly at the very 



A PLEASANT DISCOVERY. 333 

sheepish-looking boy who stood behind his 
mother during this recital, to which she 
replied : 

"I cannot see, though, why this flitting 
should have been such a very private one 
that no one knew anything about it." 

"There was a lot of fellers," said Sim, 
with downcast eyes, " that would have 
pitched in and come too if they'd knowed 
we was comin'; so I said to mammy that 
we'd jest get off quiet-like by ourselves. 
But Mary Jane hollered — " 

"And the blessed child is hollerm' this 
very minit!" exclaimed Mrs. Jute, as she 
bustled into a sort of closet and brought 
forth the white-headed baby, with a very 
open mouth and a very red face. 

"And I thought," said Sim, continuing 
his narrative, "that somebody'd hear it, 
sure, and come to see what was the matter. 
But they didn't, and we got off safe. We 
had some money, you know, from the cof- 
fee-selling at Long Pond, and I got two 
rooms for mother and me and Mary Jane, 
and went to sellin' papers. This was pretty 
good, but not good enough ; I wanted to do 



334 WATER-ANIMALS. 

something, Miss Harson, that you'd think 
tip-top, so I talked mother into havin' an- 
other coffee- stand. When the temperance 
people heard of it, they put us here ; and 
they say it does a lot of good keepin' 
workingmen away from the liquor saloons. " 

"I can easily believe that," replied the 
young lady, who had listened with great 
interest to the boy's account; "and you 
are certainly privileged, Sim, in being able 
to make a comfortable living and to do 
good to your fellow-creatures at the same 
time. Have you ever thought of being 
grateful for this?" 

Sim said, half inaudibly, that "he was 
tryin," and Miss Harson knew that from 
him this meant a great deal. 

" And — there's somethin' else," he added, 
as if afraid of being heard : " there's money 
in the bank! And, Miss Harson, Fm goiri! 
to night-school, come winter." 

Sim stood watching the effect of this as- 
tounding communication, which surprised 
his visitor quite as much as he could have 
desired. Indeed, Miss Harson could scarcely 
believe that this was the same lawless boy 



A PLEASANT DISCO VER Y. 335 

who, with companions like himself, had in- 
fested Long Pond so unpleasantly not 
many months ago. 

The change in Mrs. Jute was scarcely 
less wonderful, as she was now a neat, in- 
dustrious, cheerful woman. The little cof- 
fee-house was very popular in the neighbor- 
hood, and every one had a good word for 
it except the saloon-keepers. 

When Miss Harson returned to Elmridge 
and opened her wonderful budget of news, 
great was the exclaiming over Sim Jute and 
the delight at the improved condition of the 
family. Edith declared that it had been 
brought about by her twisted ankle, be- 
cause they got acquainted with Sim when 
he carried her to the house. Clara was 
sure that Miss Harson was the cause, " be- 
ecause she talked so kindly to Sim that he 
couldn't help wanting to be good ;" but Miss 
Harson herself thought differently. 

" We were all permitted to act as instru- 
ments ; but remember," said she, reverently, 
" that ' God giveth the increase/ Mrs. Jute 
and Sim are most encouraging examples of 
what he can do in this respect." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOR. 

" T T ERE'S a hippopotamus with a horn 
JlJL on his lip," said Edith at their next 
sitting. She was examining one of the 
books on Miss Harson's table, and seemed 
to have made quite a discovery. 

" ' The rhinoceros/ " read Malcolm ; " an- 
other pretty creature. Well, he does look 
a good deal like a hippopotamus with a 
horn ; an African gentleman, too." 

" Some members of the family reside in 
India," replied his governess. " But to be 
quite exact, he is not really a water-animal, 
only approaching it in his fondness for bath- 
ing. This, and his not belonging to any 
class in particular, have caused me to place 
him among the amphibious quadrupeds." 

"Why, I remember him," said Clara, 
presently: " don't you know, Edie, that he 
was at the Central Park that day, looking 
so wretched, with his horn off?" 

336 



A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOR. 337 

Yes, they all remembered it now ; but 
Miss Harson told them that the poor crea- 
ture there, who died soon afterward, was 
quite a different object from a rhinoceros 
in good condition freely roaming his native 
wilds. 

11 There are supposed to be several varie- 
ties of this animal," continued the young 
lady, " although naturalists do not quite 
agree on this point, some thinking that the 
varieties are all the same animal at different 
ages and under different circumstances. 
There are said to be four different species 
in Africa alone, and the natives distinguish 
them as the boreli, or black rhinoceros ; the 
keitloa, or two-horned black ; the moohooho, 
or common white ; and the kakoba, or long- 
horned white rhinoceros. The black are 
smaller, but more fierce, than the white 
ones, and much more dangerous to the 
hunter. The largest of the African species 
is the long-horned white one, which is some- 
times over eighteen feet long, while around 
its broad back and low-hanging stomach it 
would measure nearly as much. 

"The Asiatic rhinoceros is considerably 
22 



338 WATER-ANIMALS. 

smaller, and its skin hangs in folds. Two 
of these three varieties have one horn, 
while the other has two. These two horns, 
however, do not grow side by side, like 
those of other horned animals, but the 
second one rises behind the first, at some 
distance, and is much smaller/' 

"What a queer-looking creature !" said 
Clara as they were all looking at a speci- 
men of the two-horned variety. 

"This is what a celebrated hunter in Af- 
rica says of the largest species/' continued 
Miss Harson: ' It is about as large around 
as it is long, while the body sets so low on 
its legs that a tall man on tiptoe could see 
across its back. Attached to its blunt nose 
— not to the bone, but merely set in the 
skin, with a network of muscles to hold it 
— is a horn more or less curved, hard as 
steel, sharp and more than a yard long, and 
immediately behind this is a little horn, 
equally sharp and nearly straight/ ' 

" Such a big white animal must look very 
funny/' said Malcolm: " something like a 
house walking around/' 

"The so-called 'white' ones are not 



A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOR. 339 

really white," was the reply; "only light- 
colored, like the famous white elephant. 
The usual color of the rhinoceros is a dark 
slate, and a very dark one is called black. 
Even blue ones have been mentioned, but 
this probably means that the slate color has 
something the tinge of a Maltese cat. It is 
described as a huge, ungainly beast, with a 
disproportionately large head and a very 
thick skin. This skin, in some of the 
species, is curiously marked off into shields 
which are almost impenetrable ; and one 
hide will furnish seven shields, w r hich are 
worth about two dollars apiece in a rough 
state. One varietv is ornamented with a 
sort of folded collar, which hangs down 
quite low at each side. Taken altogether, 
they are not a handsome family, nor can 
they generally be called amiable. ,, 

"The white ones are good, aren't they?" 
asked Edith. 

" They have that character ; they are said 
to ' feed almost entirely on grasses, and to 
be of a timid, unsuspecting disposition. 
This renders them an easy prey, and they 
were slaughtered without mercy on the in- 



340 WATER-ANIMALS. 

traduction of firearms. But even a white 
rhinoceros is not always safe : one, even 
after it was mortally wounded, attacked a 
hunter's horse and thrust its horn through 
to the saddle, tossing both horse and rider. 
I once saw a white rhinoceros/ continues 
the writer, ' give a buffalo which was gazing 
intently at myself a poke in the chest but 
it did not wound it, and it seemed only a 
hint for it to get out of the way/ J 

This seemed so very comical that the 
children wished they could have seen it — at 
a safe distance. 

" Can a rhinoceros run very fast, Miss 
Harson ?" asked Clara. 

" Not usually as fast as a good horse, 
but it is said when disturbed to go off 
at a swift trot, easily getting ahead of a 
man on foot." 

"I should think," said Malcolm, " that it 
would be the man who would want to get 
ahead of the rhinoceros." 

"That depends," was the reply, "upon 
whether the man is frightened or whether 
he wishes to kill the animal. Hunters pre- 
fer having their prey in front of them. The 



A DAXGEROUS XEIGHBOR, 34 1 

sight of the rhinoceros is very poor, but, 
as if to make up for this, his hearing and 
scent are very acute. Like elephants and 
buffaloes, as well as our friend the hippo- 
potamus, he sleeps during the heat of the 
day, and feeds at night or in the cool hours 
of early morning and evening. His power 
of scent will warn him of the approach of 
a stranger while vet live or six hundred 
yards distant, and he will generally charge 
down upon an object that he smells, but 
does not see, pushing with three loud whiffs 
resembling the sound produced by a jet of 
steam escaping from a safety-valve. His 
cry has been compared, like that of the 
hippopotamus, to the harsh., shrill sound of 
a penny trumpet." 

"And does he only eat grass?* asked 
Edith, who thought it a verv insufficient 
meal for so huge a creature. 

" Yes, dear/' replied her governess ; " the 
big animal is perfectly satisfied with grass 
and leaves, especially if there are some 
daintv voting shoots among- them. The 
black rhinoceros while feeding" rubs its 
front horn on the ground, which quite 



342 WATER-ANIMALS. 

flattens the surface ; another species guides 
her calf in front of her with her horn ; 
while with others the young one follows 
behind its mother. ,, 

"They seem to do a great deal with 
their horns, ,, said Malcolm. 

" They do a great deal too much some- 
times, even tearing them off, which causes 
a great deal of bleeding and is evidently 
painful. But in time a new horn grows out. 
An old rhinoceros in a zoological garden 
worked so continually at the bars of its 
cage as to make its horn grow straight out 
in front, instead of upward, and this made 
her a queerer-looking object than ever." 

"Well," said pretty Clara, who was a 
little given to admiring herself, "I should 
think it was queer-looking enough before. 
I'm glad Fm not an ugly rhinoceros." 

"Take care, Clara," was the laughing 
reply. " You never heard, I suppose, what 
happened to a little Hottentot who ridiculed 
a rhinoceros for being ugly ? At least the 
poem says it happened to him. Shall I 
read it to you ?" 

Three voices were very anxious to hear 



A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOR. 343 

it; and Miss Harson proceeded to read 
the rhymes, which she said she had found 
in a volume of Harper s Young People: 

"A FABLE FOR SMART LITTLE BOYS. 
" There was a little Hottentot 
Who wandered in a shady spot 
Beside a sluggish river's brink, 
Where savage beasts came down to drink, 
When suddenly he ran across 
A monstrous, grim rhinoceros. 
The little blackamoor was pert, 
And not afraid of being hurt, 
So, without any hesitation, 
He entered into conversation, 
And, just to make his smartness clear, 
Began to ridicule and jeer : 

" * My gracious ! what an ugly beast ! 
Your skin is all begrimed and creased; 
And what a nose for shape and size, 
With a great horn between the eyes !' 

" Whereat that big rhinoceros 
Just gave his nose a little toss, 
His funny little critic eyed 
With grim good-humor, and replied : 

" * My nose, young darkey ? take a look 
At yours, reflected in the brook : 
Now tell me what you think of that ?' 

" * Mine ? Why, 'twas beautifully flat 
When I was born ; my mother's care 
To give me a distinguished air 
Has broadened it to what you see, 
And made my playmates envy me.' 



344 WATER-ANIMALS. 

" * Yes, made you quite a beau ! But hark'ee, 
You most impertinent young darkey, 
And let me tell you I was made 
With this huge form, and thus arrayed 
With a great horn upon my nose, 
To serve as warning to all those 
Who poke in other folks's platters 
And make free with their neighbor's matters. 
Fve half a mind — 'twould serve you right — 
To toss you fairly out of sight. 
I'm coming for you now. Here goes ! 
Say, now, how do you like my nose ?' 

" ' Oh don't ! you dear, good, lovely beast ! 
I didn't mean it in the least ; 
You are the sweetest beast I know, 
And every one will tell you so.' 

" « You little impudence ! begone ! 

Quick, or my nose shall help you on !' 

" That frightened little Hottentot 
Departed on a lively trot." 

This poem was highly appreciated by 
the audience, to whom the idea of a little 
Hottentot making free with a big rhinoce- 
ros was extremely funny. 

"You see now, Clara," observed her 
brother, mischievously, " that when you 
meet a rhinoceros it won't do to tell him 
how ugly he is, but you must be sure to 
say, loud enough for him to hear, that he is 



A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOR. 345 

a very handsome animal and a ' dear, good, 
lovely beast/ This may save your life, 
you know." 

" That is not at all the moral of the fable, 
Master Malcolm/' replied his governess, 
11 for it teaches us the lesson that ridiculing 
others for what they cannot help — like per- 
sonal ugliness or deformity — is a hateful 
propensity ; to point out another person's 
defects while we have others quite as bad 
is supremely silly; while to jeer at those 
who are powerful enough to crush us in 
return is a dangerous indulgence. 

"The horn of the rhinoceros, which 
seems to have been the particular point of 
the little Hottentot's attack, is very highly 
valued because of the superstitions attached 
to it; but for ivory it does not compare 
with the tusks of the elephant. Rhinoce- 
ros-horn shavings are supposed to cure 
some diseases, and many people firmly be- 
lieve that a cup made of the horn will burst 
if poison is poured into it. A German 
writer says of it: 

"'The horn will not endure the touch 
of poison : I have often been a witness of 



346 WATER-ANIMALS. 

this. Many people of fashion at the Cape 
have cups turned out of rhinoceros-horn; 
some have them set in silver and some in 
gold. If wine is poured into one of these 
cups it immediately rises and bubbles up 
as though it were boiling, and if there is 
poison in it the cup immediately splits. If 
poison is put by itself into one of these 
cups, the cup instantly flies to pieces. The 
chips made in turning one of these cups 
are carefully saved and returned to the 
owner of the cup, being esteemed of great 
benefit in convulsions, faintings and many 
other complaints/ " 

" Is that really true ?■" asked Clara. " Do 
you believe it, Miss Harson ?" 

"No, Clara, I do not believe in these 
wonderful powers of curing; and as for 
the wine and the poison, we are not very 
likely to try the experiment with either. 
But there is something much more interest- 
ing than this which is told of the rhinoceros 
by travelers and hunters, and which we 
have every reason to believe. He has a 
little friend and constant attendant, called 
by the natives 'kala,' and its object is to 



A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOR. 347 

rid the rhinoceros of insects and to warn it 
of danger. This strange guardian is a 
bird of a grayish color and about the size 
of a thrush. As many as half a dozen 
of these birds will devote themselves to 
one of these huge animals. Very disagree- 
able insects called ■ ticks/ which burrow 
under the skin and are not easily dislodged, 
torment the huge animal, and as these birds 
have sharp, curved beaks, they pierce the 
thick skin and dig out the intruders." 

"But doesn't that hurt the rhinoceros 
dreadfully ?" asked Edith. 

"Yes, dear, it often puts him to pain, but 
he seems to understand that the pain is for 
his good, and stands patiently while his 
faithful little attendants probe into his flesh 
in quest of the ticks. These birds also warn 
the rhinoceros of any danger which his 
eyes are not keen enough to see. The 
large animal has an acute ear, and gener- 
ally hears the first cry of its associate ; but 
when it is sleeping soundly, the ' kala ' 
often has to flap its wings across its eyes, 
which it never ceases doing until the ungain- 
ly sleeper is fairly awake. The bird is fre- 



348 WATER-ANIMALS. 

quently heard in the morning uttering its 
well-known cry as it searches for its bulky 
companion, to whom it seems to be attached 
after the manner of a faithful dog." 

" How funny that does seem !" said Clara. 
"I shouldn't think a rhinoceros could ever 
be caught, with these birds around to warn 
him." 

" Hunters object to the arrangement 
very much," replied Miss Harson, "and 
one of them says : 4 Many a time have 
these ever- watchful birds disappointed me in 
my stalk and tempted me to invoke an an- 
athema upon their devoted heads. They are 
the best friends the rhinoceros has." 

"I don't admire their taste," said Mal- 
colm, "in picking out a rhinoceros for a 
friend, but it's very nice of the birds." 

"And they must be so sorry," said Edith, 
"when they find that he's dead. They 
don't eat him then, do they, Miss Harson ?" 

" No, dear ; they do not belong to the 
vulture family. — To answer your question, 
Clara," continued the young lady, "whether 
other animals are not afraid of the rhino- 
ceros : it is said that the kingly lion will run 



A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOR. 349 

away from the chance of an encounter 
with him, and that the huge elephant often 
gets the worst of it in a battle. In one 
case, however, the impetuous rage of the 
rhinoceros proved his downfall ; for, having 
driven his terrible horn up to the hilt in the 
carcass of an elephant, he was unable to 
extract it, and the latter, falling, crushed 
the life out of his assailant. A traveler 
once saw a fight between a gigantic ele- 
phant and a black rhinoceros, that was 
ended by the flight of the former. The 
panther, too — and the Indian panther is a 
large and powerful animal — will sometimes 
try a battle with its huge neighbor, and 
especially if it has a family of small kittens 
reposing near where the rhinoceros is pass- 
ing. But the sharp horn easily pierces the 
soft, spotted skin, and the ferocious mother 
is crushed beneath the ponderous feet of 
her enemy." 

"And I don't suppose the rhinoceros 
wanted her ugly little kittens at all," said 
Malcolm. " What a goose the panther is 
to attack a great creature like that! She 
might know that she'd get the worst of it." 



3 50 WA TER-ANIMALS. 

"The love of most animals for their 
young," replied his governess, "is so strong 
that they can think of nothing else when 
the little ones appear to be in danger. The 
panthers nature, too, is so fierce that were 
she only the size of an ordinary cat, and 
the rhinoceros twice his usual size, she 
would probably make the attack in defence 
of her kittens. But with no kittens at 
hand she is said to glide away in the most 
unobtrusive manner at sight of her clumsy 
foe." 

"Don't the hunters often get killed?" 
asked Clara, " when they attack a rhinoce- 
ros?" 

" No ; such an occurrence is very rare. 
The natives sometimes meet with bad acci- 
dents, but the accounts of travelers con- 
cerning their encounters with these animals 
are often very amusing. Sometimes the 
great creatures even run away from the 
hunters." 

"Well," said Malcolm in disgust, "if/ 
were such a big creature, I wouldn't run 
away so easily." 

" Of course you think so," replied Miss 



A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOR. 35 I 

Harson, " because you know the animal's 
power against a man, while it does not. So 
large and powerful an animal as the horse, 
for instance, will be completely terrified by 
a small piece of white paper fluttering in 
his path, partly because it is a strange 
object, and partly because the peculiar 
formation of his eye magnifies it to about 
six times its real size." 

11 Does everything look six times larger 
to a horse than it really is?" asked Clara 
in amazement. — " Only think, Edie, if a 
mouse looked six times larger than it is to 
us, how we should run and scream!" 

" Six times more, I suppose, than you do 
now," said tormenting Malcolm. 

" I thought," said his governess, reprov- 
ingly, " that you had entered into a compact 
not to tease ?" 

" So I did, Miss Harson, and I mean to 
keep it — when I can. But I couldn't resist 
that chance." 

" And we entered into a compact," said 
Clara, amiably, " not to run and scream, 
but somehow we always forget it." 

"Recollect, then," said the young lady, 



352 WATER-ANIMALS. 

smiling, " that for the future you are not 
to run and scream at anything short of a 
rhinoceros. " 

Edith was laughing herself now, and 
" snuggling up," as she called it, to her 
governess. 

" Is that all, Miss Harson ?" in a tone 
of regret as there came an ominous pause. 

"I think it is 'all/ I do not know of 
any story to fit a rhinoceros except an 
anecdote in which the reader was request- 
ed to ' imagine the great rhinoceros at the 
Zoological Garden taking it into its head, 
with that little eye, target hide, bulky bones 
and other items about it, to fondle its 
keeper F The story adds, rather unnecessa- 
rily, that the keeper was nearly crushed 
to death/ ' 

This seemed to the children rather worse 
than being petted by a lion, and, on the 
whole, they did not think the rhinoceros a 
particularly attractive animal. 

THE END. 



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